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By the Same Author 


SMITH COLLEGE STORIES. nmo. 

$i-5°* 

Their prevailing tone is that of jollity, with 
here and there a serious or pathetic strain. The 
writer’s style is brisk and sparkling, and she is 
sure of readers in all the colleges of either sex or 
both . — The Outlook. 


SISTER’S VOCATION and 
other GIRLS’ STORIES 























SISTER’S VOCATION 
and other GIRLS’ 
STORIES:::::::::::: 

By 

Josephine Dodge Daskam 


New York 

Charles Scribner’s Sons 
1900 



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Two Copies Rec, • •> 

NOV 17 < 9uU 

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Copyright, 1900, by 
Charles Scribner’s Sons 


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TROW DIRECTORY 

PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY 
NEW YORK 


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CONTENTS 

Page 

Sister’s Vocation i 

A College Girl 31 

A Taste of Bohemia 51 

Her Stepmother 99 

A Singer’s Story 125 

A Fair Exchange 153 

Her Father’s Daughter 179 

A Country Cousin 197 

The Flesh-pots of Egypt . . . .231 


You stand at the brim o’ the hill, little girl, 
And look with a sweet despair 
At the melting hill-tops of purple red, 

With the fleecy bars of the blue o’er head, 

And you want to be running still, little girl, 

To the country of Over There. 

Oh, a brave, brave country it shows, little girl, 
With colors and trappings rare, 

A bustle of happy sounds and sights, 

A glistening current of sweet delights, 

Where everyone’s known and knows, little girl, 
In the country of Over There. 

There are strains of a sweeter song, little girl, 
Than hearts of this land can bear. 

There are delicate whispers and flitting feet, 

And gay, bright laughing at pleasures fleet, 
Where nothing but sorrow’s wrong, little girl, 
In that country of Over There. 

But no one can tell you the way, little girl, 

To that land so dear and fair; 

It glows in the sunset pools of light, 

It shines in the starry clouds at night, 

And only your heart can stray, little girl, 

To the country of Over There. 


Sister’s Vocation 


Sister’s Vocation 


A T the window of a large and stately 
guest-chamber of a large and stately 
house there sat, one day, a small and dis- 
consolate young lady dressed in black. 
There was nothing about her appearance 
to afford material for brilliant description. 
She had brown eyes and brown hair, and a 
jolly little laugh, and she had been called 
“ Sister ” by two small brothers, two aunts, 
and a father all her life. If that does not 
describe her, what would ? 

Though her room was handsomely fur- 
nished ; though she had a share in the ser- 
vices of four maids, two men, and a gar- 
dener ; though there were tea and little thin 
sandwiches going on in one of the parlors, 
and a great number of fine books in the 
library, and a grand piano in the music- 
room, yet Sister was very unhappy. 

3 


Sister’s Vocation 


It was not entirely because her father 
had died, and the two little boys had been 
sent away to school. That was six months 
ago, and Sister was a brave girl, and a 
healthy one, too. She and her father had 
been busy all their lives, and had scant re- 
spect for people who sat idle too long for 
the sake of grief. She remembered how, 
when her mother died, her father had 
worked his hardest — and she knew now 
how he had felt then. She had come to 
Aunt Ida’s with the firm determination not 
to obtrude herself or her sorrow, and she 
had succeeded. Indeed her success had 
been, if anything, too great. She had been 
a mother, a housekeeper, a teacher, and the 
best of friends to all her little family from 
the day when, on her fifteenth birthday, she 
had proudly taken Aunt Julia’s place be- 
hind the coffee. She had reigned for three 
years, and now, her kingdom over, she had 
come to a house where she was the merest 
guest. 

Aunt Ida was politely sympathetic with 
her little stranger niece, but she had not 
met her brother for years, and had never 
4 


Sister’s Vocation 


approved of his marriage nor his manner 
of bringing up his children. She had been 
a great beauty herself, and was very busy 
at making beauties of her two daughters 
and keeping up her social duties, which 
were many. She considered that in offer- 
ing her niece a home she had done a most 
amiable and charitable thing, and that Sis- 
ter could want any other employment than 
walking out for her health, and waiting till 
she could with propriety enter her aunt’s 
social world, she could not comprehend. 
Poor Sister was not even allowed to dust 
her bed-room, so strict were Aunt Ida’s 
views as to the proper occupations of a 
young lady, and was offered walks, music, 
shopping, and the charge of the invitations 
until the dancing-class and the fencing-club 
should begin. And Sister’s cheeks grew 
thinner and whiter, and her mouth drooped 
at the corners that had been so happily 
curved in the upward direction. For she 
could not do these things at all. The 
fencing and dancing frightened her to think 

of, and as for the rest 

“ It is most unfortunate,” said Aunt Ida, 

5 


Sister’s Vocation 


“ that poor Henry’s child has no vocation, 
so to speak. She has no beauty, and she 
is, unfortunately, not clever. She does not 
care for books, so unlucky in a plain girl, 
and she cannot play a note. She has no 
manner with company — in fact, her one de- 
sire seems to be to cook and clean! But, 
then, poor Henry had such ideas, and mar- 
ried so badly, you know.” 

Aunt Ida and Lois had gone south for 
ten days, and Gladys was visiting with a 
friend. So Sister was alone in the big 
house with a friend of her aunt’s who was 
entertaining largely, and who paid no more 
attention to the slender, brown-eyed girl in 
black than as if she had not been in the 
house at all. 

An afternoon tea was in progress on this 
particular day, and Sister could hear the 
plates rattle and the voices chatter, and the 
big hall-door open and close every ten min- 
utes. She would gladly have cut the thin 
sandwiches and dusted the big parlors, but 
that, she knew, was absolutely forbidden 
her. The crowds of people frightened her, 
and she felt, oh ! terribly in the way, terribly 
6 


Sister’s Vocation 


useless and left out, and utterly unworthy 
of the big guest-room. 

As her eyes wandered up and down the 
street they brightened suddenly. Coming 
out of the corner house, opposite Aunt 
Ida’s, were two handsome little fellows of 
six or seven dragging a broken express- 
cart noisily down the steps. For the sake 
of Harold and Teddy all little boys were 
dear to Sister. She caught the older child’s 
eye and waved her hand, and just at that 
minute, the younger one slipped and fell on 
the steps. The street was perfectly empty 
just then, and though Sister heard his 
screaming, no one else seemed to pay any 
attention. No nurse ran down the steps to 
pick him up; no frightened mother leaned 
out of the window. He lay where he had 
fallen on the bottom stair, and his brother 
bent tenderly over him, patting his little 
cropped head and trying to pull him up. 
But he only sobbed harder, and refused to 
roll off the cold stone. This was beyond 
Sister’s endurance. She threw a cape over 
her shoulders, and ran down the hall-stairs 
and out of the door. She was across the 
7 


Sister’s Vocation 


street in a moment, and in another the little 
fellow was on her lap. 

She kissed the place to make it well in 
the dear traditional fashion, and before 
they knew it, they were playing all three 
together; Sister an intending passenger in 
the express-cart, and Howard and Billy the 
driver and horse, respectively. Then, as it 
grew a little chilly and Billy coughed and 
sneezed, Sister would have left them had 
not Howard’s little chin began to quiver at 
the suggestion. He looked too much like 
Teddy; and with a doubtful glance at Aunt 
Ida’s front door, Sister went in with them. 

“ What will Mamma say to a strange girl 
in her house?” she asked, as they climbed 
the steps. 

“ Oh, Mamma don’t live here, she lives 
in heaven,” said Howard, cheerfully, and 
Billy added, “ Summer and winter, too — all 
the year ’round, she stays there ! ” 

Sister’s heart warmed to them even 
more. “ And Papa ? ” she asked, as they 
pushed the door open. 

“ Papa’s gone off for a week,” returned 
Howard, the older. “ He’s gone to cure a 
8 


Sister’s Vocation 


sick lady all well ; there’s nobody but Annie 
and Ellen, and Ellen went yesterday.” 

Sister looked about the hall in amaze- 
ment. It was a handsome, old-fashioned 
hall running through the house, and the 
rooms opening from it, though fewer and 
smaller than Aunt Ida’s, were well fur- 
nished and attractive ; but the dust of weeks 
covered rugs and chairs, a litter of toys and 
food was everywhere, the windows were 
clouded and dirty, and the remains of many 
fires had spread over the hearths in the front 
rooms. Chairs were overturned, books lay 
with bent backs, a close musty odor per- 
vaded the lower story, and a smoky flat air 
rushed down from upstairs as she followed 
the children up to the nursery. 

“ Who takes care of you — what grown 
person ? ” she asked, as they went into a 
close unaired play-room, and the older boy 
began carefully taking off his brother’s lit- 
tle leggings before touching his own things. 
Howard looked puzzled. 

“ I guess Aunt Lilly does,” he returned, 
with an odd little laugh. “ But Aunt 
Lilly’s got a drefful ache in her face, an’ 
9 


Sister’s Vocation 


she has the nerves, too. I hope she’s bet- 
ter,” he added, carelessly. “ I haven’t seen 
her since two or three days before yesterday 
— or maybe yesterday, I saw her ” — as he 
caught the amazement in Sister’s face. 

“ Why, but this is dreadful ! ” cried Sis- 
ter. “ Does Papa know that Aunt Lilly is 
sick?” 

Howard was getting out some tin sol- 
diers, and did not answer; but little Billy 
stood up and with hands folded tightly 
over his little stomach and his chin in the 
air, mimicked : “ Children, children, do go 
away! You make me cwazy ! ” 

The situation was obvious, and Sister 
grew more and more interested. The chil- 
dren had such pretty little ways, and were 
so strong and handsome, that even their 
dirty faces and tumbled, untidy clothes 
could not disguise the fact that they had 
been well brought up on the whole. That 
they should be alone in the house with a 
nervous invalid, and servants too clearly in- 
competent, seemed horrible to the sister of 
Ted and Harold. The furniture and be- 
longings of the house showed comfort, if 
io 


Sister's Vocation 


not wealth, and she felt sure that there must 
be some great mistake on somebody's part 
to account for such a pitiful condition of 
affairs. 

As she considered whether or not she 
had any right to push her inquiries further, 
the nursery clock struck six, and Howard 
dragged two tall chairs to the table, and 
got out some spoons and bowls from a cup- 
board near the fire-place. 

“ Annie said bread and milk was all we'd 
get till Ellen sent somebody,” he explained 
to Sister, “ and she said we could come 
down to get it when it was six o'clock.” 

He started from the room, and Sister fol- 
lowed him through a long dirty hall into 
a fine large kitchen. It was as untidy as 
only a badly tended kitchen can be, and 
before the fire, on a long bench, lay a large 
heavy woman fast asleep, breathing heavily. 
Her face was flushed, and Sister saw with 
disgust a bottle and half-empty glass on the 
floor beside her. The children paid no at- 
tention to her, but took a big pitcher and 
a plate of bread from a side-table and left 
the kitchen immediately: Sister, her lips 


ii 


Sister’s Vocation 


pressed tight together and a stern look in 
the jolly brown eyes, behind them. 

“ Where is Aunt Lilly’s room ? ” she 
asked them, when they were well settled 
over the bread and milk. Billy pointed to 
a door at the end of the hall that led out of 
the nursery, and Sister was knocking at it 
in a moment. 

“ Is that Ellen ? ” a high, fretful voice 
called out. “ Ellen, I’ll have no more com- 
plaints; I’m not strong enough to bear 
them! If Annie is drunk again, dismiss 
her immediately, and get another. My 
meals are outrageously served — outra- 
geously ! I don’t know what the doctor will 
say when he gets back. Why are you paid 
twenty-five dollars a month if you can’t 
manage better? ” 

“ It’s not Ellen,” Sister began. 

“ Then stop rattling the door ; you can’t 
get in. Who is it?” 

Sister’s head rose, and her eyes sparkled 
dangerously. 

“ I’m not a servant, and I cannot talk 
through the door ! ” she said, decidedly. 

There was a pause and finally the door 
12 


Sister’s Vocation 

opened a little. Sister pressed through the 
opening and confronted a tall, thin, peevish- 
looking woman, with a bandage tied around 
her head. 

The room was like all the others, uncared 
for and close, with various trays and bot- 
tles and other evidences of an invalid’s 
room scattered about. 

“ I am Mrs. Underwood’s niece — across 
the street,” Sister explained politely, in an- 
swer to the woman’s surprised face. 

“ I came in to play with the children. I 
am very fond of children, and — and — the 
nurse seems to have left, and the cook is — 
is unable to cook, I should say, and the 
little boy seems to have a bad cold ” 

“ Dear, dear, I suppose so ! ” interrupted 
Aunt Lilly. “ It’s always the way ! I’m 
far too delicate and nervous to be at the 
head of this house, I always was. And 
Robert gone for a week ! Dear, dear ! ” 

She was so frankly helpless, so irrespon- 
sible for the whole matter, that Sister grew 
bolder. 

“ Oughtn’t you to get another nurse and 
a cook ? ” she suggested, as Aunt Lilly sank 
13 


Sister’s Vocation 


back in a comfortable chair and sniffed salts 
from a tarnished silver bottle. 

“ Dear me, yes ! But I don’t know of 
any — do you ? And I certainly can’t move. 
I’m growing sicker every second: worry 
always makes me quite ill ! ” 

“ The children might as well be alone in 
the house ! ” thought Sister, in consterna- 
tion. 

“ I depended so much on Ellen ; if only 
somebody could be got till the doctor gets 
back! He engages the maids, it wears on 
me so,” complained Aunt Lilly. 

She was certainly very pale, and she had 
evidently no intentions whatever of leaving 
her room. A dazzling idea came to Sister’s 
mind, an idea that made her cheeks flush 
and her voice shake as she said, timidly: 
“ I happen to know of a good cook that 
Aunt Ida had, and — and — I could take care 
of the children till he came, if you — not 
unless you like, of course — if you could 

trust me. I was housekeeper at home ” 

It was out. Would she be ordered from 
the house? Would Aunt Lilly laugh at 
her? 


14 


Sister’s Vocation 


That lady took another sniff at her salts. 
“ That’s very kind of you, I’m sure,” she 
said, languidly. “ When you get the cook, 
tell her I like toast soft in the middle and a 
pale-brown, and do try to keep the children 
out of this hall, please 1 ” 

Sister stared. “ How much do you pay 
the cook, Miss — Miss Lilly? ” she asked. 

“ I think Robert pays sixteen dollars a 
month, but I’m sure I can’t be expected to 
do all this ! ” she broke out, fretfully. “ Pay 
what seems best, if you know the cook, I’m 
sure ! ” 

She turned her head away, and Sister felt 
dismissed. 

“ One thing more,” said the girl, timidly, 
for she was afraid that Miss Lilly might 
grow vexed to the point of reconsidering 
her permission, “ the house needs cleaning, 
I’m sure, if you could see it — can I get a 
woman in for a day to help ? ” 

Miss Lilly’s eyes remained closed, and 
though Sister repeated the question, there 
was an obstinate silence. So she closed 
the door, and half frightened at her 
temerity and half jubilant at what seemed 
15 


Sister’s Vocation 


to her hungry little soul the prospect of a 
feast of delightful work, she went down to 
the kitchen. To her infinite relief it was 
empty. As she entered the nursery, How- 
ard met her, a worried look on his little 
face. 

“ Annie’s gone, too,” he said, simply. 
Sister’s eyes filled with tears as she watched 
him turn back to quiet Billy, who had fallen 
into an uncomfortable doze on the high 
chair, and was whimpering in the dark, half 
awake. 

“ I have to take care of Billy till Papa 
gets back,” said the little fellow, confiden- 
tially. Sister took Billy into her lap, and 
put one arm around his brother. 

“ I have two little brothers,” she said, 
cheerfully, “ but they’re big, now.” 

“ How big?” inquired Howard. 

“ Harold is eleven and Teddy is thirteen, 
and so they are off at school. I feel very 
lonesome for them sometimes. May I stay 
and take care of you until Papa gets back ? ” 

“ Instead of Ellen?” 

“ Yes, instead of Ellen.” 

“ I’d like it,” said Howard, seriously. 
16 


Sister’s Vocation 

“ Ellen wouldn’t play passenger at all the 
last day.” 

So that was settled, and at her request 
they took her to the room off the nursery 
where their two white little beds stood. It 
was cold and dark, but she found wood for 
a fire and fresh linen for the tumbled beds. 
They had a nice bath and a glorious pillow- 
fight, and for the first time in months Sis- 
ter was kissed two warm and noisy good- 
nights. She left them fast asleep, and 
slipped out across the dark street. She had 
a moment of uneasiness as she saw in im- 
agination Aunt Ida’s horrified face, but, 
while she put some things in her bag and 
went down the stairs to find Aunt Ida’s 
friend, she thought how her father had 
gone into old Dr. Duncan’s house once and 
“ played Uncle ” for a week, when things 
seemed to be beyond poor Miss Duncan’s 
control. 

“ I felt that I was wanted, Sister, and so 
I went,” was all the explanation he had ever 
given her. And she felt that she was want- 
ed, just now, at Aunt Lilly’s. Certainly, 
no one wanted her here, she felt, as when 
1 7 


Sister’s Vocation 


she said quietly that she was going to help 
the doctor’s sister take care of the children, 
Miss Taylor shrugged her shoulders and 
replied indifferently that she was the best 
judge of what she should do. 

That night she slept in the room with 
Billy and Howard, and the next day saw 
great changes in the doctor’s house. To 
the ecstatic delight of the boys they were 
allowed to play about in the kitchen while 
Sister, enveloped in a big print-apron, got 
breakfast for all three with a skill born of 
days’ and weeks’ experience of a cookless 
family. Then the most inviting of trays 
found its way to Aunt Lilly’s room in the 
hands of a neat little maid who, though evi- 
dently unable to take Ellen’s place, had 
appeared early in the day, at that nurse’s 
orders, and who agreed to stay at any rate 
until the doctor should come. A message 
to Norah Flaherty, who had been dismissed 
from Aunt Ida’s house for some trifling 
error, brought a good trusty cook, and ten 
o’clock saw a cleaning-woman with her pail 
and mop established in the hall. 

Oh, but those were days ! All the house- 
18 


Sister’s Vocation 


keeper in Sister revelled in such an oppor- 
tunity for activity ; all the mother in her de- 
lighted in tending the wondering children 
as they had never been tended since 
“ Mamma gave us barfs just the way you 
do,” as they confided to Sister. 

And her ambition soared higher as the 
grateful house repaid the toil of its busy 
little mistress and her three helpers. In 
two days the lower story was reflecting 
from window to polished floor the dancing 
fire-light, the freshened rugs, the shining 
furniture, and Sister pined for new worlds 
to conquer. The nursery must be done, of 
course, and it would be a shame, as the 
cleaning-woman herself admitted, to stop 
at that. 

So, on the fifth morning, Aunt Lilly was 
surprised to find Mrs. Underwood’s re- 
markable niece standing by her bed with 
empty hands, instead of little Maggie with 
the usual tray. 

“ I have served your breakfast in the 
guest-chamber, Miss Lilly, for this morn- 
ing,” said this young lady, “ and I will help 
you in there to eat it.” 

19 


Sister’s Vocation 

Aunt Lilly stared in undisguised dis- 
pleasure. 

“ Indeed, I shall do no such thing,” she 
returned pettishly, “ this room is well 
enough : I have a headache,” and she closed 
her eyes. 

“ That,” returned the young lady in the 
print-apron and little dusting-cap, decid- 
edly, “ is because it is so stuffy and close 
in here — nothing else ; and it is so dark that 
I can’t see to find all the glasses and silver 
that are up here.” 

Miss Lilly opened her eyes. Was this 
competent, brisk, bright-eyed person the 
timid, sad young girl that had told her she 
knew of a cook? What was she doing? 
Actually the blinds were going up — the 
windows were open. 

“ I’ll go ! I’ll go ! ” cried Aunt Lilly, in 
dismay. “ Bring me my wrapper ! ” 

So Sister and her trusty woman fell upon 
the last stronghold of disorder, and while 
they scrubbed and shook and aired, Aunt 
Lilly consumed pleasant little lunches in 
the shining guest-chamber; Norah Fla- 
herty sang cheerfully in the sunny kitch- 


20 


Sister’s Vocation 


en, anu the children trotted contentedly 
through the “ pretty new house,” enjoying 
like little animals the cleanliness and 
warmth and comfort they had so missed, 
yet could not precisely understand nor de- 
scribe. They took the present situation as 
simply as they had borne the past unpleas- 
antness, and neither Maggie nor Norah 
ever guessed that the young lady who sang 
over her work, played with the children, 
and yet had a lynx-eye for dirt and disorder, 
was not an old friend of the family and the 
natural guardian of the boys in their 
father’s absence. 

It was the sixth day of Sister’s reign, and, 
after superhuman labor on the part of 
Norah and Maggie and with the help of 
Billy and Howard, who stuck all the pins 
into the rings, the glistening windows were 
suitably shrouded in curtains so fresh and 
spotless that even Aunt Ida’s looked a little 
wilted by comparison. It was the last 
touch, for the door-bell and brass-plate had 
been polished the day before, and Sister, 
with an almost pathetic sense that there was 
absolutely nothing else to be done, had dis- 
21 


Sister’s Vocation 


missed the admiring cleaning-woman and 
settled down to mending. 

The twilight was over the city, and a fine 
cold rain was falling. Wet and chilly 
travellers cast envious eyes at the red-light- 
ed windows of the comfortable square house 
on the corner, and one of them heaved 
a sigh of relief as his buggy drew up be- 
fore it. 

“ Take Prince around, Peter, and bring 
in some wood immediately — it will be colder 
than a barn, probably. Ellen will neglect 
the fires so ! ” 

He sprang up the steps very eagerly for 
a man of his years. He never returned 
from the shortest absence without a horrid 
fear that something had happened to his 
two babies, and something in Aunt Lilly’s 
look as he hastily bade her good-by had 
made him tremble at the thought that her 
neuralgia might be approaching. But it 
was too early for that, he had consoled him- 
self, and the professional opportunity was 
too good to lose by staying at home. So 
he had left Howard and Billy to Ellen, and 
Ellen, though she had grown negligent of 


22 


Sister's Vocation 

late, was really fond of them, poor little 
fellows ! 

“ It’s no way for them to live — no way 
at all ! ” he muttered, vainly hunting for his 
latch-key. “ The house is not fit for them 
to grow up in, and poor Lilly grows less 
competent every week. It's a pitiful home 
to come to, when a man's tired out ! But 
whom can I get ? Some housekeeper " 

He gave up the search for his key and 
pulled the bell sharply, staring hard at the 
neat white-aproned little maid who so 
pleasantly replaced the dawdling untidy 
Ellen. 

“ I am Dr. Watson, and I will find the 
boys myself; please do not tell them that 
I am here,” he said to her. It was his great 
pleasure to steal on them unexpectedly and 
catch their first delighted looks and cries, 
and he stepped softly through the hall to 
find them. 

He was a man, you see, and men cannot 
explain definitely what it is that transforms 
an untidy house into a well-kept home, but 
he felt that the hall was somehow different 
as he peeped into the parlor. There the 

23 


Sister’s Vocation 


change was too evident to allow of any 
doubt; the snowy curtains, the shining 
grate, the sweet clean air, soon observed 
by a physician who had fought for a year 
against dust and stale odors, the absence 
of toys and clothes — all struck him as he 
went through. 

“ It cannot be that Lilly ■ ” he 

thought, and then he went into the study, 
where thought failed him. For one year 
he had watched the household machinery 
run slowly down, but early in the day he 
had sternly forbidden both children and 
servants from meddling with “ Papa’s 
room,” the one place that had been sacred 
for all the years since his young wife had 
ceased to arrange it. He had tried to keep 
it neat, but it had gradually grown into such 
chaos that he had dreaded to begin the task 
of arranging it. And lo, it was done ! 
Every little ornament in its accustomed 
place; clothing, books, papers and instru- 
ments sorted and put away; the brightest 
of fires leaping — “ the chimney has been re- 
paired ! ” — on the hearth, the dark red cur- 
tains comfortably drawn; the books well 
24 


Sister’s Vocation 


dusted on the study table, the lamps all 
trimmed and cleaned, and strangest sight 
of all, three red roses nodding over a tall 
vase on the mantel ! 

He ran up the stairs, wondering as he 
ran at the stillness over all the house. No 
doors banged, no children called out, no 
fretful aunt or angry nurse scolded them ; 
all was quiet, orderly, prepared for his in- 
spection. Aunt Lilly’s door was half open 
— wonder of wonders ! — and peeping 
through, he beheld that invalid in a regen- 
erated room, clad in a house-dress that bore 
no resemblance whatever to the bath-robe 
that she commonly wore, peacefully doing 
fancy work, with no sign of the tray, bot- 
tles, and tarnished vinaigrette that invari- 
ably accompanied her. 

As he knocked at the door she did not 
look up. 

“ I hope the soup will be thinner to- 
night, Sister,” she said. “ I am confident 
that Norah never strains it,” and she sewed 
on peacefully. 

“ Good heavens, Lilly, is there a nurse in 
the house ? Who is sick ? ” 

25 


Sister’s Vocation 


Her brother advanced into the room, and 
caught her hands nervously. 

Aunt Lilly drew away with some irrita- 
tion. “ I must say, Robert, you are very 
startling. Of course nobody is sick — you 
will send me into nervous prostration ! We 
are all as well as ever.” 

“ Whom do you call Sister? Who has 
made the house over? Where are the chil- 
dren?” 

“ Mrs. Underwood’s niece — a very ener- 
getic girl — has been here with the children. 
They seem very fond of her, and she cer- 
tainly manages them wonderfully. As to 
the house, it has been turned topsy-turvy 
more or less — I was out of my room one 
whole day! But as long as the children 
are quiet I ought not to complain, I sup- 
pose. Still, the soup was not strained yes- 
terday ” 

“ Oh, bother the soup, Lilly ! Do you 
mean to say that a perfect stranger has been 
managing this house since I left ? ” 

“ She’s not a perfect stranger, when it 
comes to that,” returned Aunt Lilly, im- 
perturbably. “ It seems she is Frank 
26 


Sister’s Vocation 


Claxton’s daughter, whom you used to 
have home from school with you — he died, 
you know. She quite cried when I said 
you would be here soon. She wanted to 
know if you mightn’t be willing to keep 
her as a kind of assistant house-keeper, to 
take care of the boys. Ellen left, I be- 
lieve, and Annie, too. She would be glad 
to do it for what Ellen got, she says, but 
that is nonsense, of course. She’s a mere 
girl, and though the children are devoted 
to her ” 

“ Good heavens, Lilly, have you no 
gratitude? Don’t you see — don’t you un- 
derstand, that it’s because she won’t offer 
to give us her services — for our sakes? 
Old Claxton’s daughter? As fine a man 
as ever stepped! Live with us? At her 
own price — on any terms! Wasn’t I go- 
ing to hire a housekeeper? Where are the 
children ? ” 

He was already down the hall and at 
the nursery door. Before it he paused to 
take in the pretty picture. In front of a 
roaring fire, in what was to him the cheeri- 
est, brightest, warmest room in the world, 
27 


Sister's Vocation 


Howard sat on a worn old fur rug, clasp- 
ing his knees, gazing adoringly up at a 
slender girl in black with a basket piled 
high with little garments by her side and 
a stocking in her hand. Billy played 
quietly at her side, and a little table with 
bowls and spoons stood, white and neat, 
farther off. 

“ And what did Teddy do then, Sister? ” 
said Howard, interestedly. 

“ What Ted do den?" echoed Billy, 
happily, standing a tin soldier on his 
head. 

“ Why, he just made another snow man 
and forgot all about the one that was 
spoiled," said the girl, “ and after that — 
who is it ? " 

But before the boys could jump into his 
arms he was on the rug with them, press- 
ing his iron-gray curls against their little 
brown, cropped heads. 

He held out his hand to Sister, and there 
were tears in his eyes. 

“ Their mother sat with them here, like 
this," he said, simply, and Sister under- 
stood. 


28 


Sister’s Vocation 


And when she would have left them 
alone, the doctor pushed the boys away, 
and taking her hands, drew her to him and 
kissed her forehead. 

“ My dear little girl,” he said, “ I knew 
your father years ago too well to offer to 
take, or try to take, his place. I suppose 
you know that you are like him in many 
ways. But my sister tells me you would 
like to stay with us, and you cannot im- 
agine how glad I should be to have you. 
If you can make it your home, you can 
surely make it ours ! ” 

His kindly worn face, his fatherly air, 
the evident gratitude and interest in his 
keen clear eyes came even nearer Sister’s 
heart than his words. 

“ I have thought it over, and I am sure 
Papa would like me to,” she said, half to 
him, half to herself. “ I’m sure I can do 
more here ” 

“ I’m drefful hungry, Sister ! ” pleaded 
little Howard, “ it’s drefful late ! ” 

And Sister, who never spent much time 
in thought, not being intellectual, nor even 
clever, dropped consideration and set about 
29 


Sister’s Vocation 


the nursery supper, which had always ap- 
peared to her simple mind more impor- 
tant than any possible discussion could 
be ! 


30 


A College Girl 






































































































































































































































































































































. 



























































































































































































































































































































































































A College Girl 


E LEANOR GRAY walked slowly in- 
to the reading-room and sat down at 
the long table covered with blue-prints. 
She sat down and took up a book filled with 
“ sample copies/’ but she did not turn the 
leaves. She looked about the room, at the 
long green tables covered with daily papers, 
at the divans around the walls, at the great 
fireplace, and the scattered groups of girls. 
As she looked her eyes filled with tears, 
and unconsciously she lifted her hand and 
wiped them away. 

A pretty little freshman, who never 
looked anywhere but in Eleanor Gray’s 
direction when that handsome and prom- 
inent junior was visible, stared harder than 
ever, and whispered to her room-mate, 
“ Miss Gray’s crying ! ” 

“ Nonsense ! ” said the room-mate, add- 
ing abstractedly, “ but the line A B is 
33 


A College Girl 

equal to the line C D, and therefore — 
therefore — why, what if she is? I suppose 
she can cry if she likes ? ” 

“ Yes,” said the freshman, meekly, “ of 
course. But she must feel pretty bad to 
cry here in the reading-room. And I never 
thought that Eleanor Gray cried, anyhow. 
I wish I could — I wish I knew her bet- 


“ You are absurd,” said the room-mate, 
“ and you know it. Anybody would think 
you never looked at anyone but Eleanor 
Gray. I don’t believe she’s crying, either. 
What should she have to cry for? She’s 

too conceited to cry ” 

But the look in the freshman’s eyes 
stopped her. “ She is conceited : you 
know perfectly well that she is ! ” she re- 
iterated feebly from behind her geometry. 

“ She is not in the least conceited,” re- 
turned the freshman, coldly. “ She is the 
most brilliant girl in her class, and every- 
one knows it. She has a right to look 
proud if she likes, and if she looks bored 
most of the time, which is what makes the 
girls angry, it is because she can’t help it; 
34 


A College Girl 

if we were more interesting, she wouldn’t 
look so bored ! ” 

The room-mate dropped her book in her 
lap, and stared for a moment in silence. 
Then, as the gong struck the hour, she 
shook out her skirts and picked up her 
books. “ I should advise you, my dear,” 
she said, sweetly, “ not to show so much 
disgust when Teddy Carroll tells us it’s the 
greatest delight of her life to buy violets 
for Lena St. John — you’re getting there 
fast! But you have my sympathy — for I 
doubt if you could interest Her Majesty, 
you know ! ” 

But it was true, Eleanor Gray was cry- 
ing, and no one could be more surprised 
at that fact than she. Through a mist of 
tears she looked at the familiar faces in the 
blue-print book — the Faculty, curiously 
labelled : “ Miss Brown, with shawl ; ” 
“ Miss Williams, on steps ; ” the students, 
in every conceivable position and combina- 
tion : “ J. Reading, smile ; ” “ Lucia Cole, 
banjo ; ” “ Cora Willis, Lou Hartes, and 
J. Peterson, in hammock ; ” “ the president, 
with cat ; ” “ the president, without cat.” 
35 


A College Girl 

She had laughed at them all — now she was 
going to leave them. She had never 
bought blue-prints; she had no memora- 
bilia. Now she would like some, but it 
was too late. If she had money to pay her 
bills, she was fortunate, Eleanor thought 
bitterly. 

Someone was practising on the big or- 
gan in the chapel overhead. The queer, 
wheezing piston on the reading-room wall 
heaved up and down to the Bach fugue 
that repeated its doleful minors again and 
again. It was warm, warm with the de- 
licious drowsy heat of the young spring 
term — the beautiful spring term with the 
long lazy evenings on the back campus, 
under the stars, in the hundred hammocks. 
And this would be her last spring term ! 

Somehow it was harder to go than she 
could have dreamed, last year. To go out 
in good order as a senior, with four years 
behind her, to get once more the admira- 
tion and pride in her that her class always 
felt when she had distinguished herself, and 
then to leave the whole thing finished, com- 
pleted, and start out prepared for the larger 

36 


A College Girl 

life — that would not be so hard. All would 
feel alike, then. But to go as a junior, with 
all the things undone that she had meant 
to do, to leave to another editor the college 
paper that she had meant to manage so 
well, to lose the senior dramatics she had 
planned to enjoy so much — oh, it was hard ! 
And all for the lack of a few pitiful hundred 
dollars ! 

She got up abruptly and left the room. 
As she passed through the hall, not look- 
ing at the large crowded bulletin-boards 
that lined the walls, someone called her 
name. “ Excuse me, Miss Gray, but 
there’s a note on the board for you ! ” 

Eleanor looked up in some surprise at 
Clara Williston, a rich, unimportant girl 
whom she hardly knew. “ Thank you,” 
she said, with a cool nod, “ I’ll get it.” 

She opened the half-sheet of note-paper 
and glanced at it, only half-reading it, her 
eyes were so blurred with tears : 

“ Dear Nell: Of course you remember 
our dance is to-morrow night. I’ve got 
you as good an order as I possibly could, 
and may I have the second extra? As 
ever, Kate.” 


37 


A College Girl 

How she had laughed at the dances and 
said they bored her, once ! But they 
seemed the very essence of pleasure and 
music and light, now. 

She walked home and changed her serge 
skirt and shirt-waist for a pretty light 
gown, open at the neck. She put on her 
rings, all of them, and went to supper. Al- 
though off the campus, the house where 
she lived was a popular one. 

Never had she talked so brilliantly. 
Story after story she told the twenty girls 
at the table, till the room rang with laugh- 
ter. She scowled and coughed and mim- 
icked the dark professor, she simpered and 
smiled and affected the graces of the light 
one. More than one of her flashes of wit, 
her delicious paradoxes, her apt compari- 
sons went the rounds of the class-room for 
weeks afterward. 

When she left the table they crowded 
around her and followed her to the gate, 
wrapping her in that delicious atmosphere 
of admiring interest and affectionate ap- 
preciation that only a crowd of college girls 
can give their idol of the hour. 

38 


A College Girl 

“ Where are you going, Miss Gray ? 
Have you got to go? Won’t you come 
down and have an ice with us ? ” 

Eleanor smiled ; the excitement of the 
supper-table flushed her cheeks. “ Thank 
you, but I have an engagement with Miss 
Leeds,” she said. 

“ Oh, how interesting it must be to know 
the Faculty ! ” gushed the sophomore with 
the pretty clothes. “ But then, I suppose 
they’re glad enough in your case ! I 
should be so scared, I shouldn’t dare to 
speak to them ! ” 

Eleanor smiled. “You silly things!” 
she said, “ they’re very like other people — 
sometimes they’re more so ! ” And she 
left them laughing at the gate. 

She could not study, and even the elastic 
engagement with Miss Leeds seemed im- 
possible to her. She strolled through the 
gate and went slowly to the back campus. 
Already it was covered with light dresses, 
and the soft tinkle of mandolins came from 
among the trees. Some of the glee-club 
girls were singing the “ Little Alabama 
Coon,” and near the observatory a few 
39 


A College Girl 

energetic seniors were trying to organize 
a universal “ sing.” 

Eleanor felt a sudden longing to be with 
them all, to be close to her class-mates, and 
at the same time she dreaded having to talk 
to them. She slipped behind the trees to 
a vacant hammock, and sat slowly swing- 
ing to and fro. All about her floated frag- 
ments of conversation, and she tried idly to 
guess the speakers from their voices : 

“ So I said that I’d have him up for the 
Prom, but it seems that Kitty had asked 
him already — horrid, wasn’t it? I hate to 
ask a man ” 

“ I’d just read eight pages of Frey tag, 
and I was as cross as a bear. I said, 4 I’m 
not prepared,’ and I don’t care what he 
thought ” 

“ Mary looked perfectly stunning ! She 
carries herself so well, too. But I don’t 
see how she does so much. She says she 
never gets to bed till eleven ” 

“ Oh, as for Katharine, she’s too far gone 
for any use ; she can’t speak of anybody but 
Eleanor Gray. And I don’t believe that 
Miss Gray knows who she is, do you ? ” 

40 


A College Girl 

“ Well, good-night. I must simply do a 
little philosophy, or I shall be expelled. 
Think how embarrassing that would be ! ” 

“ Good-night ! ” and a girl in pale-blue 
dimity, that rustled crisply as she walked, 
left the departing philosopher and strolled 
over to Eleanor’s hammock, stopping 
when she saw its occupant. 

“ Oh, don’t go away,” entreated Miss 
Gray. “ Please come back ! I was just 
going. Is this your hammock?” Then 
she saw that the girl was Clara Willis- 
ton. 

“ I’ll come,” said Miss Williston, “ only 
on condition that you don’t go. Other- 
wise, I go immediately.” She waited a 
moment, and then sat beside Eleanor. “ I 
hope I sha’n’t bore you to death ? ” she 
said. 

Eleanor did not answer, but pulled her 
skirt aside as Miss Williston sat down. It 
occurred to her that very probably Clara 
Williston would spend more money for her 
commencement gown than she would need 
to finish her senior year ! 

“ I want to tell you how much I enjoyed 
4i 


A College Girl 

your story in the Monthly,” said Miss 
Williston. “ I don’t see how you can 
think of such queer exciting things. 
Really, I got quite worked up over it! I 
hope, now you’re editor, you won’t stop 
writing.” 

Eleanor never quite knew why it was 
that she didn’t make some conventional 
reply, and then go. She barely knew Miss 
Williston, and she was a girl who said very 
little of her own affairs to anyone, even the 
people she knew best. But to her own 
surprise, she looked over the campus and 
said easily : “ I’m afraid I shall do very 
little writing, editorial or otherwise. I 
shall probably not be here next year.” 

“ Not be here! Why, Miss Gray, what 
do you mean ? Surely you’re not going to 
lose the senior year? Truly, it’s the very 
best of all ! And what would the class do 
without you ? ” 

Eleanor smiled. “ I fear you overesti- 
mate my importance,” she said. “ I have 
always pitied the poor alumnae, who had 
practically carried the college with them 
when they were here, and who are really 
42 


A College Girl 

forgotten by the next class but one. One 
doesn’t count for much unless one’s on 
deck all the time ! And I don’t doubt that 
the senior year is very pleasant, Miss Wil- 
liston. But ” 

“ But, Miss Gray, it’s dreadful ! Why, 
the class — do they know it ? ” 

“ No,” said Eleanor ; “ I haven’t told 
anybody yet. I’m sure I don’t know why 
I should tell you. Don’t think of it. I’m 
here now, at all events. So you like the 
senior year the best? Kate Dickinson al- 
ways said ” 

“ I don’t care what she said,” said Miss 
Williston, with a decision that annoyed the 
junior. “ I want to talk about you. Now, 
don’t look haughty, Miss Gray, please. I 
simply must. You mustn’t think me rude, 
will you? Because I don’t mean to. But 
— is it money ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Eleanor, “ it’s money.” 
And then, with a bitter little laugh, she 
folded her hands on her lap and looked at 
Miss Williston. “ I suppose you can’t un- 
derstand how five hundred dollars can be 
an impossibility, can you? ” she asked. 

43 


A College Girl 

“ But, Miss Gray, you could earn it. 
You could write, you know ” 

“ Not at all,” said Eleanor, shortly. “ In 
the first place, I’m not ready to yet. In 
the second place, I should have to be sure. 
I couldn’t live from hand to mouth, on a 
chance. It may do very well for a genius, 
but it won’t do for me.” She spoke quick- 
ly, and almost angrily, as if she were jus- 
tifying herself to somebody behind Miss 
Williston. 

“ I have lived all my life in comfort. I 
can’t starve in an attic just for a diploma. 
And then — oh, it’s impossible ! ” 

She turned her head away and talked 
low, as if to herself. Miss Williston lis- 
tened with hushed breath, fearing to lose a 
word. 

“ You see,” said Nell quickly, “ it’s all 
up with the family. They’ve kept it from 
me because I hate money matters. I don’t 
understand them. And they thought they 
could get me through. But they can’t. So 
I’m just going home. I can’t teach — I 
loathe it. Besides, I haven’t studied any- 
thing with a view to teaching — oh, why,” 
44 


A College Girl 

and she turned and stared at the senior as 
if just conscious of what she was saying, 
“ why do I tell this to you ? I must be 
crazy. I ” 

“ Because,” said Clara Willistori, quietly, 
“ because I am just the one to tell it to. Do 
you mean to say, Miss Gray, that for the 
lack of five hundred dollars you are going 
to lose your last year? — for that, and noth- 
ing else? ” 

“ Yes/’ said Eleanor, dominated utterly 
by this rich nobody, “ yes, just that.” 

“ Then,” said Miss Williston, “ then I 
say that it is absurd, and that you sha’n’t 
do it. I can do very little at college, but 
I can ” 

“ My dear Miss Williston,” said Eleanor 
icily, “ I do not in the least understand 
you. I hardly know you, and ” 

“ Oh, but you do understand me ; you 
must — you shall ! ” cried Miss Williston, 
and Eleanor saw that she was flushed, and 
that her eyes shone like stars. “ Listen to 
me ! I have — oh, Miss Gray, when I think 
of how little it would mean to me and how 
much to you! Please, please do it! Just 
45 


A College Girl 

think, only five hundred dollars! I have 
two thousand dollars a year. I am 
ashamed of it, truly I am, but I have it for 
what I please — just exactly what I please. 
No, you sha’n’t get up yet. See, see how 
it is with me! All my four years here, 
what have I done? Nothing. I’ve got 
through well enough, but that’s all. I’ve 
made some friends, but not many. The 
only two girls I ever really loved here were 
very poor, and they were awfully proud, 
and they were afraid that because I was the 
richest girl in college — oh, it was dreadful ! 
And I shall go and leave nothing behind 
me — nothing! If I could feel that I had 
given you to your class — to the college — 
for a year, I should be so happy ! I should 
even think that I was of some use! Oh, 
let me! Let me feel that I’ve really done 
something ! ” 

Eleanor looked at her curiously. She 
was almost in tears. Her hands held Elea- 
nor’s tightly, and she was evidently deep- 
ly in earnest. 

“ It would mean so little to me — so lit- 
tle ! ” she begged. “ And yet it would be 
46 


A College Girl 

so much for the class! And they would 
never know — never would know; but I 
should know, and I should know that I’d 
done something for them, and that I wasn’t 
just one of those poor useless girls that 
drift into college and then drift out again, 
and don’t count — either way ! ” 

Eleanor felt strangely touched. “ Why, 
how you care ! ” she said, wonderingly, 
“ how you- care ! ” 

Miss Williston drew a long tremulous 
breath. “ Care ! ” she cried, “ you don’t 
know how we care, we poor mediocre 
ones ! Do you think that because we 
couldn’t write a poem to save our lives, and 
can’t make original remarks in class, and 
are never proposed for office, and don’t, for 
the best of reasons, edit the Monthly, that 
we don’t want to do these things ? Oh, if I 
could only have my father hear the things 
said about me that are said of you every 
day ! If I could only feel that I was to the 
class what you are ! ” 

“ The class don’t like me,” said Eleanor 
abruptly. 

“ They admire you, and if you wanted 

47 . 


A College Girl 

to, you could be liked very, very much in- 
deed, said Miss Williston. “ I always 
thought that you didn’t care to have us like 
you!” 

There was a pause. The girls were 
drifting back to the houses, one by one. 
The stars were well out, and Miss Willis- 
ton’s face seemed white, now, in their 
light. 

“ Do you really care for the things they 
say about one here ? ” asked Eleanor. 

“Care?” said Miss Williston again, 
“ of course I care. So do you. But you 
don’t need them. You’re sure of them. 
You know what you can do. And through 
you I can do the only thing I ever could 
do — and I go in June. Oh, Miss Gray, 
only five hundred dollars! I could put it 
in the bank to your account, and that would 
be the end of it. And you could pay me 
back whenever you pleased, if you want- 
ed to. For I suppose you wouldn’t let 


“ No,” said Eleanor, “ I wouldn’t. An 
hour ago I should have said that the whole 
thing was impossible.” 

48 


A College Girl 

“ But now?” said Miss Williston quick- 
ly, “ but now? ” 

“ But now,” said Eleanor, slowly, “ now 
— oh, never say again that you are one of 
the ‘ mediocre ones ! ’ No one who can 
make so disagreeable and proud a girl as 
I accept a kindness from a stranger as 
gratefully as I do from you ” 

But she did not finish, for Miss Williston 
leaned toward her and kissed her. 

“ I thank you,” she said, simply, “ now 
I can hold up my head again. I have done 
something for my college ! I am some- 
thing more than * Clara Williston, that 
well-dressed girl ! ’ ” And before Elea- 
nor could reply, she had slipped away. 

Eleanor lay back in the hammock and 
looked at the stars. A strange peace came 
to her, and she realized for the first time 
how unhappy she had been. Slowly the 
great bell struck eight. The lights came 
up in the great shadowy buildings. Only 
the seniors and a few lazy under-class girls 
filled the hammocks around her. “ I live 
here ! This is where I belong ! ” she 
thought happily, and smiled to herself. 

49 


A College Girl 

A year more to work and plan and get 
ready in ! A year more in the place she — 
yes, the place she loved ! Across the cam- 
pus came a row of seniors, arms twined 
about each other, eight abreast. 

Where, oh, where are the grave old seniors ? 

Where, oh, where are the grave old seniors ? 

Where, oh, where are the grave old seniors ? 

Safe, now, in the wide, wide world ! 

There was a sad little ring to the old 
tune, and Eleanor wondered if they were 
sorry. 

Safe, now, in the wide, wide world ! 

“ That doesn’t mean me,” she said, hap- 
pily, to the hammock pillows, “ that 
doesn’t mean me ! ” 


50 


A Taste of Bohemia 



A Taste of Bohemia 


M RS. WESTON followed her husband 
to the end of the piazza and sat 
down by the arm of the chair dedicated 
to his after-dinner cigar. 

“ I’d like to talk a little about Barbara,” 
she began with a small sigh. Mr. Weston 
chuckled softly. 

“ Barbara again ? So soon ? ” he said. 
“Well, what is it now? Does she want 
the dining-room painted pea-green? Am 
I requested to smoke a hookah, like Alice’s 
caterpillar, and shun anything so ordinary 
as a cigar? ” 

“ Not exactly that,” and Mrs. Weston 
smiled faintly. “ It seems amusing to you, 
Horace, but I assure you if you lived un- 
der a running fire of that child’s comment 
and criticism you would take it more seri- 
ously. She wants the parlor done over 
again to imitate a Japanese tea-room — she 
will use it for a studio then, she says. She 
53 


A Taste of Bohemia 


assures me that a 4 parlor ’ is provincial and 
inartistic to the last degree. She says that 
it is ‘ horribly conventional/ and that every- 
body comes right into the sitting-room 
anyway — which is true enough, for that 
matter — and that every room in the house 
should be in constant use and show it. The 
idea, Horace! Parasols and dragons and 
bamboo portieres she wants, and then it 
will be different, she says ! ” 

“ Well, my dear, you can’t deny that it 
would,” and Mr. Weston laughed outright. 
“Why won’t the attic do any longer?” 

“ That’s what worries me, Horace, be- 
cause she’s so determined this time. She 
says that the attic was just a play-room for 
her while she was a child, to practise her 
childish ideas in. Every square inch of the 
wall is covered with pictures and the 
matting is old. She thinks it’s undignified 
for her to go up two flights every time she 
wants anything ; she’s almost eighteen now 
and the only daughter, and if we treat 
her seriously we’ll give her the parlor. 
Now, Horace, do you think I ought to 
do it?” 


54 


A Taste of Bohemia 

“ No, no, dear ; certainly not ! I’ll talk 

to her. When Roberta has gone ” 

“ Oh, Roberta ! I don’t want to be 
rude to your cousin, Horace, but I must 


“ There, now, Madam, I have you ! Who 
said by all means not to invite her? Who 
admitted that she was flighty and irrespon- 
sible and the worst thing for Bab? And 
who insisted ” 

“ I know, Horace, I know ! But it 
seemed so inhospitable, and I hadn’t an 
idea she’d be so silly.” 

“ Silly ? My dear Elsie, the silliness of 
Roberta Weston has yet to be measured! 
When a woman of twenty-eight insists on 
being called ‘ Bobbie ’ ” 

“ There’s another thing, Horace ! I al- 
most wish we had been willing to call Bar- 
bara ‘ Phyllis,’ as she wanted us to, for then 
she’d have been satisfied, perhaps, and now 
iv.hat do you think Roberta calls her?” 

“ What?” 

“ ‘ Ritchie ! ’ — because her middle name 
is Richardson. Oh, Horace, boys are so 
much easier ! ” 


55 


A Taste of Bohemia 


Up in the despised attic on a couch 
whose denim cover was embroidered with 
the autographs of her friends, sat Barbara, 
her arm about her new friend’s waist. 
Cousin Roberta was attired in a fascinating 
Japanese kimono that trailed behind her. 
Her hands were covered with quaint rings, 
her hair was elaborately curled, her slippers 
brass-buckled and high-heeled. If the 
gown were not so fresh as it might have 
been, the rings more noticeable for their 
oddity than their intrinsic value, the slip- 
pers exaggerated in style, none of these 
things occurred to Barbara. With her 
gray wide-opened eyes fixed adoringly 
upon her cousin’s face — the privilege of 
calling such a woman “ Bobbie ! ” — and 
her fingers absently twisting the loose locks 
over her temples — Barbara regretted bit- 
terly the youthful appearance those float- 
ing, almost yellow locks inflicted upon her 
— the object of many family councils con- 
fided her own difficulties. 

“ If Father would only take the matter 
seriously ! ” she said, regretfully ; “ but he 
won’t! He just laughs and says, ‘Well, 
56 


A Taste of Bohemia 

well! are we so far behind the times as 
that ? Dear me, dear me ! ’ ” 

“ Oh, Cousin Horace was always just 
like that,” agreed Roberta, “ just exactly. 
He never would be serious. He never will 
take the slightest risk, never go into any 
new scheme unless he knows the pedigree 
of everybody connected with it and sees 
just how it’s going to come out. Now, 
that’s not reasonable, you know, Ritchie. 
You have to take risks in business if you 
want to make any success. Why, I know 
men in Wall Street that stand to lose thou- 
sands every day — thousands! They just 
take the chances. They may come out beg- 
gars or they may come out millionnaires 
— they don’t know. Cousin Horace is too 
conservative. There’s no excitement in 
life if you know all about it beforehand. 
Why, to tell you the truth, my dear, I’ve 
more than once gone home to my little 
den — and there’s been nothing for dinner 
there ! ” 

“ No ! ” sighed Barbara, excitedly, “ you 
don’t mean it, Cous — Bobbie ! What did 
you do ? ” 


57 


A Taste of Bohemia 


“ Why, something turned up every time ! 
Somebody came in and asked me out, or 
there was a check waiting for me from 
some article that I’d forgotten I’d written, 
or somebody brought some cheese in to 
make a rabbit. Oh, if you trust to things 
happening, they will ! ” 

Barbara drew a long breath of relief. 

“ That’s just the way I’d love — perfectly 
love to live ! ” she announced, eagerly. 
“ It’s so artistic and informal and jolly, and 
so individual too. You have a chance to 
live your life as you want to, not as your 
relatives want to.” 

“ In short,” said Cousin Roberta, com- 
prehensively, “ it’s Bohemian ! ” 

Barbara smiled with satisfaction. 

“ That’s it — that’s just it ! ” she agreed. 
“ Now, here, it’s all just the way it always 
has been. Sleep in the bed-room, eat in the 
dining-room, read in the study. If I want 
to make some little thing in the parlor with 
the chafing-dish, you know, Mother says 
it’s absurd, with the dining-room across the 
hall and the gas-range in the kitchen, and 
the risk of grease on the rugs! If I get 
58 


A Taste of Bohemia 

all my things together and plan to have a 
little study and studio and everything com- 
bined in my room, why, Father sits right 
down on that. He says it’s unwholesome 
— a bedroom is meant to sleep in, and the 
air should be kept fresh, and isn't the house 
big enough for me? If I want something 
besides those deadly old engravings in the 
study, and bring down my Gibson pictures 
and a poster or two and my Jap umbrella, 
why, there it is again ! — ‘ A sense of the 
fitness of things, my dear, is surely one of 
the first requisites of the artist.' He says 
the study would give him the nightmare 
every night with those unholy objects 
scattered about. 

“ I admit that they looked ridiculous 
there,” added Bab, honestly, “ but whose 
fault was that? Not the fault of the things, 
surely. It was the other things in the study 
that threw them out.” 

“ What I have always said about Cousin 
Horace, that I say to-day,” Cousin Roberta 
declared solemnly. “ A fine man, but 
Philistine to the core ! ” 

“ Y — yes,” murmured Bab, undecidedly, 

59 


A Taste of Bohemia 

worried by the “ Philistine,” but consoled 
by the “ fine man.” 

“ Now, Cousin Elsie,” continued Rob- 
erta reflectively, “ doesn’t approve of me 
one bit — I see it plainly. And I know why. 
She knows how I detest housework and 
managing and planning ahead. I want to 
spend my money for personal things, artis- 
tic things, not washtubs and soup-tureens. 
The care of a house would drive me wild ; 
those little tiresome, endless details I have 
no sympathy with. But Cousin Elsie loves 
them, I do believe. Now, you, Ritchie, 
sympathize with me. You have my tem- 
perament. If you wanted to come down 
with me when I go, I’d like to have you 
stay a week or so. Could you ? ” 

“ Oh, Cousin Roberta, I should love to ! 
Do you really mean it? Really? ” 

Barbara was in ecstasy at the very pros- 
pect, but suddenly her face fell. 

“ They’d never let me, never ! ” she said 
gloomily. 

“ I suppose not,” Bobbie agreed. “ Of 
course, you know, New York isn’t any- 
thing in the summer. No one’s in town, 
60 


A Taste of Bohemia 


they say; and yet I’m not so sure about 
that, after all. Every year more people find 
out that you can have a good time there, 
if you know how. And then, anyway,” she 
added philosophically, “ if you can’t afford 
to leave, you can’t, so you’d better en- 
joy it!” 

“ Oh, I should enjoy it ! ” sighed Bar- 
bara, twisting her love-lock tighter than 
ever ; “ but I don’t believe they’ll ever let 
me,” and she went out to get ready for 
dinner. 

Cousin Roberta was not one to let the 
grass grow under her feet, as she herself 
expressed it, and she brought Bab’s heart 
into her mouth by remarking casually be- 
tween dinner and dessert : 

“ Oh, by the way, Cousin Horace, what 
do you say to lending Ritchie to me for 
a week? I’d try to keep her from being 
homesick, and if she wants to see how 
artists live, I can show her a few.” 

Barbara dared not look at her mother’s 
face, but she watched her father through 
her lashes. 

“ Artists ? Artists ? ” repeated Mr. Wes- 
61 


A Taste of Bohemia 

ton, composedly ladling whipped cream 
over his jelly. “ I had no idea that Bab 
was going in for art too. Are you deter- 
mined to conquer along every line, then, 
my dear? Shall we have a symphony 
soon ? ” 

“ Oh, Cousin Horace, you are too bad ! ” 
protested Roberta. ".Of course I know 
that literature is Ritchie’s line, but when I 
say ‘ artist/ I mean all that, you know. 
Why should painters appropriate that name 
any more than the rest of us? Art is 
broad.” 

“ It is, indeed,” responded Cousin Hor- 
ace gravely ; “ and so that I know what 
you mean, Roberta, it’s all right. About 
Bab, if she’d like to go and you’d like to 
have her, I can see no objection, I’m sure. 
I think that a week, seeing that it’s August, 
would be enough for her, as she’s not used 
to the city at that time.” 

Barbara could hardly trust her hearing. 
Was it possible that her mother approved 
of this? At any rate, she made no com- 
ment whatever, and the meal proceeded 
quietly. 


62 


A Taste of Bohemia 

For the next two days Barbara packed 
her trunk violently, stocking it with pens 
and paper enough to last a season, and pri- 
vately hoping that the week might extend 
to two, laying in twice as much clothing 
as her mother advised. Roberta, who was 
on her vacation, reclined upon the couch 
and talked lazily of fascinating little sup- 
pers after the theatre, newspaper confer- 
ences with well-known people, endless 
tickets to the matinee — she had a cousin 
in the box-office — and amusing interviews 
with celebrities, for she had not entirely 
given up this work, though her “ chief ” 
had long ago given her the responsibility 
of filling a column of “ fashionable sug- 
gestions ” every other day. To Barbara 
the mere word journalism flung wide open 
numberless, if vague, possibilities ; she was 
not quite sure what it included — Roberta 
seemed to do so many things — but then, as 
she had said, art was broad. 

Bab was not at all sure that she would 
enjoy “ interviewing ; ” it seemed a small 
sort of business, somehow, to demand in- 
formation concerning a person from the 

63 


A Taste of Bohemia 

person himself — suppose he didn’t want to 
give it? And it was so directly opposed 
to her old nurse’s maxim, earnestly im- 
pressed upon her at a very early age : 

Never peek , 

Never pry. 

Never ask the reason why / 

But anyone so clever as Bobbie must 
surely know about this, and Bobbie found 
it very interesting and stimulating. And, 
anyway, one needn’t begin with journalism, 
although it was quite the fashion now, 
Roberta assured her. One could “ get in- 
to the magazines ” — if the magazines want- 
ed one ! Bab hoped they would want her. 

The weather had been exquisitely fresh 
and cool for August, and as she and Cousin 
Roberta walked across the city in the late 
afternoon, a little damp breeze blowing up 
behind them, Bab wondered at the neces- 
sity for fresh-air fund subscriptions. Sure- 
ly no poor little children could die of heat 
in these clean cool streets! 

Roberta had sent ahead to her chum to 
announce her arrival, and as they stepped 
64 


A Taste of Bohemia 

out of the elevator into the dark little hall 
an appetizing odor of Welsh rabbit floated 
to meet them. Roberta pushed open one 
of four doors and swung into a small, rather 
crowded room, Bab close at her heels. 

Her visitor gave a little cry of pleasure. 
“Oh, Bobbie, isn’t this too cunning!” 
she exclaimed. Roberta nodded carelessly. 

“ It’s a decent little hole,” she said. 
“ How’s everything, Baby ? ” 

“ Baby ” was a little plump blonde crea- 
tion with big blue eyes and a very practical 
little mouth. She might have been eigh- 
teen or twenty-eight — it was impossible to 
tell. Over a dainty silk evening-waist she 
wore a splashed and spattered painting- 
apron, and as she acknowledged her intro- 
duction to Barbara she continued to stir 
busily over the chafing-dish. The walls of 
the room were crowded with photographs 
and posters, pen-and-ink sketches, bits of 
crockery, bas-reliefs, looped fish-nets, and 
two or three bright Japanese lanterns. One 
of these latter was inverted over a high 
lamp for a shade, and gave a quaint, mel- 
low light that softened the mingled color- 

65 


A Taste of Bohemia 


ing of the gay little room. What was ap- 
parently a book-shelf was curtained over at 
the lower half, and the preparations for the 
coming supper showed that it was in reality 
a store and china closet. The bottom part 
of a little ladies’ desk was concealed by an- 
other curtain, and that, too, proved to be 
a cupboard. Fresh rolls and butter were 
brought in by the janitor’s little boy, a bot- 
tle of olives and a jar of devilled chicken 
came from under the desk, chocolate was 
boiling in a second chafing-dish ; and when 
Roberta had spread an embroidered tray- 
cloth over the little heart-shaped tea-table 
and put a tiny green plant in the centre, 
the jolly supper was ready. 

Barbara ate in happy silence, delighting 
in the unmatched china and tiny souvenir 
spoons with twisted handles, laughing mer- 
rily at the “ company cup ” — the only un- 
broken one — they gave her, and listening 
greedily to the rapid chatter of Baby, who 
had suffered many misfortunes that day, 
having foolishly bought a salmon-colored 
velvet stock by daylight intending it for 
evening wear — “ and it looks absolutely 
66 


A Taste of Bohemia 


ghastly, Bobbie, a hideous flesh-color with 
no lights in it ! ” Also the model had felt 
sick and refused to pose any longer, and 
they had put in one she detested. And her 
neighbor in the life-class had joggled her 
and ruined her skyline, and made her too 
nervous to get it right again. 

“ Jimmie sent tickets for you and Miss 
Weston,” she added. “ I’m going with the 
Doctor. Dee Dee’s on a case.” 

“ Dee Dee’s the third of us,” explained 
Roberta. “ She’s a trained nurse, and 
ought to be on a vacation, poor dear, for 
she’s worked to death, but they won’t let 
her alone. She’s engaged, and when she 
can’t go anywhere suddenly — they call her 
up at twenty minutes’ notice — Baby gets 
the ticket that her devoted fiance purchased 
for her. But we’ll all go together.” 

After supper Roberta and Barbara went 
into the second room to change their shirt- 
waists for something better befitting a 
theatre invitation. Roberta and Miss Du 
Long — for Baby had a more dignified name 
— shared it as a bedroom, and there was 
literally no corner for Bab’s trunk. 

67 


A Taste of Bohemia 


“ But we’ll put it in Dee Dee’s room,” 
said Roberta, comfortably. 

“ Oh ! ” protested Bab, “ but would Miss 

Dee — I don’t like to ” 

“ Deane,” explained Roberta, “ Delia 
Deane. Yes, indeed — and where would you 
put it, Ritchie? Do you want to sit and 
hold it? Dear me, Dee Dee’s used to that ! 
She’s out so much, you see, on her cases, 
and we pack things in here a lot. Once 
I had somebody staying here overnight 
— I didn’t know her very well, either — and 
Dee Dee came home unexpectedly and 
found her in the bed. She hadn’t met her 
at all. It was too rich ! ” 

Barbara stared widely. 

“ Why, Bobbie, how dreadful!” she 
gasped ; “ what did Miss Deane do ? ” 

“ Oh, that was the funniest part of it,” 
replied Roberta, heating her curling-irons 
over the gas, “ the very funniest. You 
know Dee Dee’s terribly strong — strong as 
a horse. And she’s tall and big, too. She 
thought Baby and I had had a quarrel and 
one of us had come in here, and she just 
picked my friend up like a baby and had 
68 


A Taste of Bohemia 

her in the parlor before she knew what was 
happening! You should have seen their 
faces! It was the funniest thing I ever 
saw.” 

“ Now, see here, Bobbie,” interrupted 
Miss Du Long, suddenly, “ if you think 
that because you have company, all you 
have to do is to curl your hair and get 
dressed, you’re mistaken ! I’ve cleared 
up, but you’ll have to come and wipe the 
things at least! I’ve hardly sat down 
to-day.” 

Roberta laughed good-naturedly and 
went out, half-dressed as she was, to wipe 
the little cups and plates, pinning up her 
hair as she went. Bab slipped into the 
fourth and last room of the tiny series — a 
cunning little bath-room, with a luxurious 
porcelain tub and shining nickel fittings — 
to pause in dismay on the threshold. 
Kneeling before the tub was Miss Du Long, 
1 washing dishes in it , while Bobbie, bare- 
armed and with half-arranged hair, sat 
composedly on the edge, wiping them for 
her friend. On the one chair of which the 
limited area admitted were piled the re- 
69 


A Taste of Bohemia 


mains of the feast, in perilous proximity 
to the soap and towels that filled the inter- 
mediate spaces. 

“ We’ll be through in a minute,” called 
Baby, cheerily, “ we’re dreadfully fussy now 
about getting ’em done up right away ; we 
used to leave ’em meal after meal, because 
Bobbie wasn’t in the mood for it, and they 
piled up hideously. We never got through, 
then. But now we’re just as proper and 
regular ! ” 

Bab shook herself together : why 
shouldn’t they wash them there? They 
certainly couldn’t bring a dish-pan into the 
parlor very well. And the tub was porce- 
lain — it was really a charming way, when 
you came to think of it. But she was glad 
to find the traces removed when she en- 
tered the dear little bath-room again. 

Presently the Doctor came, a frank, 
pleasant, boyish man, who fretted and 
fumed in pretended rage at the supper- 
menu. 

“ Never putting anything decent into 
your stomachs from morning till night ! ” 
he declared, “ nothing but messes and 
70 


A Taste of Bohemia 

slops! I vow you shall eat beefsteak to- 
night !” 

Then they started out for the theatre, 
walking all the way, both because the night 
was fine and the Doctor wanted the exer- 
cise, and because they wanted Barbara to 
see the streets. 

She walked along by Cousin Roberta, 
her head whirling with anticipation and 
excitement. The long lines of lights, the 
glowing windows, the indescribable city 
odors, cigar-smoke and whiffs from the 
druggists’ and barbers’ shops, the throng- 
ing changing crowds, the well-dressed 
men, the women, so utterly different from 
the passing women at home, the shrieking 
newsboys and clanging trolley-gongs, with 
the rumble of the elevated cars — all this, 
with herself a part of it, filled her with a 
delicious confusion. 

In the lobby they parted. 

“ Baby and the Doctor are too swell for 
us — they’ve seats in the orchestra,” said 
Roberta, lightly, “ we’re going upstairs.” 

Bab watched the two walking down the 
aisle: the Doctor handsome and well set- 
71 


A Taste of Bohemia 


up in his evening clothes ; Baby’s curly yel- 
low hair rising most effectively from an 
exquisite blending of turquoise-blue velvet 
and chiffon; and smiled at the thought of 
those little white-gloved hands cleaning 
chafing-dishes in a bath-tub ! 

She felt almost ashamed of her simple 
tucked blouse — it looked so plain and 
babyish. She longed for a jet-trimmed 
black satin waist like Roberta’s, and did 
not know that her mother’s unerring taste 
had produced, with the soft shirred gray 
silk and the deep collar of quaint yellowish 
lace, an effect that not only won Roberta’s 
instant admiration, but caused more than 
one pair of eyes to follow the slender grace- 
ful figure, like some artist’s “ portrait of a 
lady.” 

The play was a popular light extrava- 
ganza, with much spectacular effect, and 
from the first tap of the leader’s baton to 
the drop of the curtain, Bab never lost a 
second of the performance. Between the 
last two acts there was a long wait, and 
Baby and her escort joined them for a lit- 
tle chat, while Roberta went to find some 
72 


A Taste of Bohemia 


friend of journalistic fame, that Bab might 
meet in the flesh a woman whose name she 
had so often read at the foot of her witty 
columns. Everyone treated her with con- 
sideration, nobody inferred by tone or 
glance that she was not yet eighteen; she 
was on a perfect equality, apparently, with 
this brilliant, well-poised metropolitan 
crowd; she longed for her father to see 
her now! 

And after the play came the crown of 
all. With the brilliant finale ringing 
through her head, they went out into the 
bright, late night streets and found a white 
little table in a merry crowded restaurant. 
A band played somewhere; white-vested 
waiters glided about assiduously ; the clink 
of glasses and silver, the murmur of voices 
broken by the occasional bright, high laugh 
of a woman, sounded everywhere; deli- 
cious rich dishes passed by them on heav- 
ily-loaded trays. 

The Doctor sternly insisted on beef- 
steak, and they ate it laughingly, with little 
glasses of light sweet wine; Bab felt like 
some woman in a story. The waiter served 
73 


A Taste of Bohemia 

her as obsequiously as if she had been a 
princess, the long rolls of bread tasted like 
no other bread in the world, the band be- 
hind the palms played enchanted music. 

Then home through the streets, grown 
darker and quieter, but still alive, and up 
into the little parlor. They scurried about 
and pulled the cushions from the narrow 
couch in the corner under the Japanese 
lanterns. 

“ We haven’t got blankets enough, really, 
Ritchie,” Roberta explained, “ but here’s 
the couch-cover if you’re cold, which you’re 
not likely to be. The last extra pillow-case 
was torn, and Dee Dee dusted with it last 
week ; but you can sleep on a blue denim 
or a yellow satin or a burnt-leather cushion 
— will that do ? ” 

“ Oh, yes, indeed, Bobbie dear, any- 
thing ! ” murmured Bab, her mind a mixt- 
ure of little glasses, fancy dances, white 
shirt-fronts, and perfumed evening dresses. 

“ Sleep as late as you like, you know — 
you’ve nothing to do,” added Roberta. 
“ Good-night ! ” 

Barbara was asleep in ten minutes, but 

74 


A Taste of Bohemia 

not before she had registered a vow to be 
either a journalist, an artist, or a trained 
nurse, and live forever in New York. 

She was awakened by a querulous voice 
and a clatter of plates. 

“ Dear, dear, Bobbie, that boy hasn’t 
brought the rolls ! Isn’t that maddening? ” 

“ I don’t care if he hasn’t — I don’t want 
a thing but the coffee.” 

Slowly Barbara’s eyes unclosed. She 
gazed in a vague wonder at the lanterns 
and casts, which looked coarser, somehow, 
in the brighter light. Her head ached a 
little, and she remembered that, having no 
brush in the parlor, she had left her hair 
tumbled about her face instead of braiding 
it in its usual neat strands. She felt hot 
from the Bagdad couch-cover, and the air 
in the room was not so fresh as it might 
have been. 

“ Ready for your coffee ? ” and Roberta 
appeared, languidly trailing the kimono 
behind her. 

Barbara looked about for the breakfast, 
but there was no sign of any preparation 
for it. Somewhere from the direction of 
75 


A Taste of Bohemia 

the bath-room came the odor of coffee, but 
that was all. 

She got up and started for her bath, but 
Roberta anticipated her. 

“ You’ll have to wait, Ritchie, I’m afraid, 
till Baby gets the coffee done, and then 
you’d better take your coffee hot,” she 
said. “ Here she is,” and Miss Du Long 
appeared with a cup of coffee in either 
hand, a dressing-gown flung around her 
shoulders, and her golden hair in a mussy 
plait. 

They seemed to expect her to drink it 
as she was, so she sank back on the yellow- 
satin cushion and wondered where the rest 
of the meal was hidden. 

“ The rolls didn’t come,” remarked 
Baby, “ have a saltine ? ” 

“ No, I thank you,” returned Bab. 

“ Some marmalade ? ” queried Roberta. 

“ I think not, thank you,” and she 
watched Miss Du Long eat crackers be- 
tween sips of filtered coffee and wondered 
if Roberta really thought that a cup of that 
liquid constituted a breakfast. 

Evidently she did, for with a glance at 

76 


A Taste of Bohemia 

the little clock, she laid down her cup and 
hastened off to dress. 

“ I’m on duty at eight-thirty to-day, 
Ritchie,” she explained, “ and the Babe al- 
ways gets away by nine. Now I’m treat- 
ing you just as you’d like, I know, and 
leaving you to yourself — the house is yours. 
I’ll be back at noon to take you to lunch. 
Stroll about, if you want — New York’s as 
simple as tit-tat-toe, you know; avenues 
up and down, streets across. I wouldn’t 
go much below Fourteenth Street — from 
there to Twenty-third’s the shopping. * Ask 
the way anywhere.” 

Bab hardly knew how she felt. Of course 
Roberta could not entertain her ; of course 
she was a busy woman — she had not ex- 
pected it. But this matter-of-fact desertion 
startled her a little, nevertheless. She felt 
sleepy as well as hungry, and half uncon- 
sciously fell back on the pillows. Half-past 
twelve was not her usual bed-time. 

When she opened her eyes again, Rob- 
erta and her friend were gone. Her curi- 
osity awoke, and she examined the three 
little rooms more closely. They showed 
77 


A Taste of Bohemia 

better by lamplight. The casts were cheap, 
the hangings dusty, the furniture rather 
crowded for comfort. 

Still, when she had had her bath and 
aired the parlor she felt better. She made 
up the couch, and observing that Miss 
Deane’s bed was unmade — she must have 
come in late and gone out early, Bab de- 
cided — made that, too, and would have car- 
ried her good intentions farther, had not 
the third room presented such a hopeless 
chaos of clothes, cups, sketches, old letters, 
and tumbled bedding that she shrank from 
interfering. A picture of white-aproned 
Minnie deftly setting her room in order 
flashed into her mind, but she dismissed it 
instantly. One could not have everything, 
of course. 

She did not quite dare to essay the un- 
familiar city just then, and roamed about 
the little parlor, fingering the few books 
and magazines, admiring the presentation 
copies of works she had never heard of be- 
fore by authors as unknown, longing se- 
cretly for lunch-time. She had respected 
Cousin Roberta for her abstemious Con- 
78 


A Taste of Bohemia 

tinental breakfast at home, but had not 
been obliged to imitate her in that respect, 
and she wished increasingly as the hours 
went by for her share of the home break- 
fast: the orange, the dish of oatmeal with 
cream, the crisp bacon and golden eggs, 
and Hannah’s muffins. 

At twelve o’clock a loud knocking at the 
door woke her from a revery. The janitor 
confronted her, an injured look on his sal- 
low face. 

“ He’s been ringin’ a long time out 
there,” said he, “ and he swore there was 
a young lady in. I said if there was, you’d 
have paid some attention to him. He give 
me this,” and he handed Bab a note. A 
little flush of disappointment rose to her 
cheeks as she read : 

“ Dear Ritchie: 

“ Dreadfully rushed — can’t possibly get 
home for lunch. Just go three streets 
down and two across — I mean two blocks 
to the left — and lunch at the Ladies’ Dairy 
Lunch. Bring the bill to me, of course. 
I’ll be up a little later, if I can. 

“ Hastily, 

“ Bobbie.” 


79 


A Taste of Bohemia 

Partly from hunger, partly from weari- 
ness, the tears rose to Bab’s eyes. 

“ Thank you,” she said to the janitor, and 
turned away. It occurred to her as she 
hunted up her hat that she had literally 
never eaten a meal by herself in her life. 
And in a restaurant, too ! 

She went slowly down the stairs, won- 
dering if she should have locked the doors, 
and ran into a tall large young woman 
jumping up two steps at a time. 

“ Oh ! you’re the little cousin ! ” said 
this young woman, cheerily. “ I’m Miss 
Deane. Came back to get some clothes 
and the walk. Getting hot every minute, 
isn’t it ? Out to lunch ? ” 

“ I was — ” Barbara began. 

“ Come back and lunch with me — got it 
right here ! ” interrupted Miss Deane, and 
Bab gladly turned back. 

Dee Dee bustled about, opened a quart 
bottle of milk, poured it evenly into two 
bowls, and took out of its wrappings a lit- 
tle crusty brown loaf. This she broke in 
half and began crumbling her half into the 
milk. 

“ Best lunch in the world ! ” she said, 
80 


A Taste of Bohemia 

fixing her steady brown eyes on Barbara, 
“ better than canned stuff ! ” 

Now, if there was one thing that Bab 
detested it was bread and milk. She choked 
down a few mouthfuls, however, and tried 
to listen to Dee Dee’s prophecies about the 
weather. “ If the sun sets red, that’s the 
end of us,” she declared. “ This has been 
too good to be true.” 

She had washed the bowls and got down 
the stairs before Bab quite realized what 
she was doing. 

Left alone, Barbara got out her pens and 
paper and tried to write. Here was a 
studio just to her mind, and the solitude 
she had so often besought. But Dee Dee’s 
exit had made the rooms a little lonesome, 
and none of the plots or rhymes that flew 
about so thickly when she had other things 
to attend to, came to this devotee of the lit- 
erary muse. 

At five o’clock Roberta appeared, apolo- 
getic and weary with the heat. 

“ Did you get your lunch ? — Oh, with 
Dee Dee — that’s good. Then you didn’t 
starve, I know. Dee’s a great eater. I — 
81 


A Taste of Bohemia 


I had too much lunch myself. Lobster al- 
ways makes me sick on a hot day. I don’t 
want to see another thing to eat ! ” 

Barbara sighed. Cousin Roberta threw 
off her things and subsided into the ki- 
mono. 

“ Get any work done, Ritchie ? I always 
liked a good long quiet day to scribble in. 
How you ever get anything done with two 
great boys pulling your hair and wanting 
their caps found all the time I can’t see. 
Oh, goodness, but it’s hot ! ” 

Later on Baby appeared, warmer, if pos- 
sible, than Roberta. 

“ Supper ? Don’t mention it to me ! 
Send Patsy for a glass of iced tea — that’s 
all I want — except a bath. And Mr. Belden 
said he might drop in to-night. Dee says 
not to use her room, for she’s coming in 
early.” 

“ Very well,” returned Roberta, crossly, 
“ then that means the bath-room for 
Ritchie and me, I suppose. The mending- 
girl’s got to sit in our room, and that tire- 
some Belden makes my head ache. What 

you see in him, Baby ” 

82 


A Taste of Bohemia 

But Miss Du Long was splashing in the 
tub, and Roberta relapsed into gloomy 
silence. 

“ I suppose you’re hungry, Chicken?” 
she remarked, presently. “ There’s plenty 
of stuff here.” 

She opened a box of sardines, another of 
crackers, a jar of strawberry jam, and a 
package of Huyler’s. 

“ Here you are,” she said ; “ we won’t 
really set the tea-table — the cloth got a 
stain on it last night, and we must keep it 
decent for Sunday. They all pile in Sunday 
afternoons.” 

But though she arranged the sardines 
and lemon attractively on the little plate, 
Bab could not eat them at first. They were 
just at the soup at home, and the roast beef 
would come later, with soft white potatoes, 
and corn on the ear, perhaps, and Hannah’s 
peach ice-cream! 

She was really very hungry, however, 
and disposed of half the sardines, a great 
deal of jam, and all the crackers, with fre- 
quent dips into the box of chocolates. 

“Just leave the things there; I’ll pick 

83 


A Taste of Bohemia 

’em up later,” Roberta said, but before 
she got about it the mending-woman came, 
and both friends jumped up hastily to 
rummage among their tangled possessions. 
Bab lay drowsily on the couch, meaning to 
clear the dishes away, but forgetting to do 
it. Suddenly a hand touched her shoulder. 

“ Excuse me, but I think that’s Mr. Bel- 
den’s ring,” came Baby’s light sweet voice, 
and Bab stumbled up and out into the 
hall. 

“ Here, come in here,” whispered Ro- 
berta, drawing her into the bath-room. 
“ That woman chatters enough to drive 
you into a madhouse, and Mr. Belden 
knows absolutely nothing but Titian and 
Raphael — he’s dreadfully tiresome. We’d 
better sit in here.” 

Barbara sat down on the floor and leaned 
her head against the porcelain rim of the 
tub. Roberta, cushioned on a laundry-bag, 
wrote rapidly at her “ copy.” 

“ Better get a book or something : he 
stays forever,” she advised, then bent her 
head again, and only the rustling of her 
paper was heard for some time. 

84 


A Taste of Bohemia 

The evening seemed endless. Mr. Bel- 
den’s voice chanted monotonously on, 
punctuated by Miss Du Long’s laugh, 
Roberta’s pen scratched busily, the room 
grew steadily hotter. It seemed that eter- 
nities had passed before she could stumble, 
stiff and sleepy, to the narrow couch with 
the yellow-satin pillow. 

The lamp had smoked a little, and the 
sardines were still there, their oily odor 
mingled with the scent of the cigarette Mr. 
Belden had been permitted to light. 'She 
arranged the couch herself, for Baby had 
gone straight to bed and Roberta was too 
tired to do anything more than clear away 
the mending-woman’s debris. 

The night was long and hot. Bab 
dreamed of barrels of sardines, and woke 
with a hard headache, the clank and rattle 
of the heavy wagons that had travelled past 
all night still ringing in her ears. 

With a determination to get a bath be- 
fore the coffee-making began, she slipped 
into the bath-room ahead of the others. 

“ Could I have a clean towel, please, 
Bobbie ? ” she asked a minute later. 

85 


A Taste of Bohemia 


Roberta’s head emerged from her bed- 
room door. 

“ I’m dreadfully sorry, but the laundry 
isn’t back,” she explained. “ Is yours 
gone? Well, just use mine, that’s all — we 
haven’t but seven between us just now — 
they’re giving out.” 

It occurred to Bab for the first time that 
every household did not of necessity pos- 
sess a roomy white towel-drawer, piled 
with linen and huckaback, flanked by Turk- 
ish towelling and wash-cloths, ready to the 
hand. 

With compressed lips she fitted in the 
nickel stopper and turned the shiny faucet. 
Only a long sputtering sigh and a few 
drops of rusty-colored water came from the 
tube. 

To her horrified appeal, Roberta an- 
swered disgustedly. 

“ There ! I forgot all about it ! Of 
course there isn’t — it’s all turned off. Do 
you hear, Baby? There’s not a drop of 
water in the house. The janitor told me to 
fill the tub last night and the ice-cooler, 
for we sha’n’t get any till eleven o’clock. 

86 


A Taste of Bohemia 

There’s a big leak in the pipes above us. 
And your old Mr. Belden made me forget. 
Now, where’s the coffee?” 

A wail from the disconsolate Baby was 
the only answer. 

“ No water to wash the dishes, either! ” 
grumbled Roberta. “ Let’s go down to the 
Dairy Lunch, then, all of us ! ” 

But even the dainty little breakfast served 
there came too late for Bab. Her head- 
ache increased momently ; it seemed to her 
that she had not washed her face- for a 
week. 

Baby’s invitation to visit the Art League 
she was forced to decline, and assured 
them that she only wanted to lie down 
and couldn’t think of dinner, no matter 
where. Bobbie hurried her back, estab- 
lished her on the couch, told her to expect 
the water before noon, and promising to 
be back in a few hours, left her to her hot 
weary self. 

Never, if she lives to be a hundred, as 
she assures herself, will Barbara forget that 
dreadful day. The city glowed and sim- 
mered in the heat : the buildings and pave- 

87 


A Taste of Bohemia 


ments radiated it. Above her head some- 
one played scales and five-finger exercises 
indefatigably ; in the next apartment a 
baby cried beyond all power of comfort- 
ing. The rooms were dusty and disor- 
dered, the sardines sickened her, the 
bed was hot, the sheets mussed and tum- 
bled, the yellow cushion unspeakably irri- 
tating. 

Sometimes she nearly drowsed, but then 
a hurdy-gurdy was sure to come and play 
the tunes she hated most. The lanterns 
grew more hideous with every hour, the 
crowded furniture stuffier and less in keep- 
ing. 

At noon Miss Du Long came back with 
some fruit and lemonade, and while Bar- 
bara ate a little she entertained her to the 
best of her ability with tales from her “ life- 
class. ” Suddenly she stopped short, and 
fixing her childish blue eyes on Bab’s pale 
nervous face, she asked abruptly: 

“ Do you know where Bobbie’s taking 
lunch?” 

“ No — how should I ? ” returned Bab, 
listlessly. 


88 


A Taste of Bohemia 

“ Well, it’s the same place as yesterday 
and with the same person,” said Baby, nod- 
ding sagaciously ; “ and it’s a swell place, 
too, I can tell you ! I thought Bobbie was 
keeping something from us — she always 
acts cross when she is — and now I know it. 
It's my belief, Miss Barbara, that Bobbie 
has met her fate ! That’s just the way Dee 
Dee acted ; and if Roberta Weston doesn’t 
have something to write home about soon, 
I’m mistaken. It’s her chief at the office — 
he’s a fine fellow too. Everybody likes 
him.” 

“ Oh ! ” said Bab, falling back wearily on 
the yellow cushion, and that was all the 
comment she made. If anyone had told 
her three days ago that she would be in 
a position to watch the romance of her 
fascinating cousin, she would have held her 
breath with excitement, but it hardly caught 
her attention now. Somehow Roberta 
seemed far away from her. She realized 
that she did not, could not, know inti- 
mately this busy self-centred woman, so 
much older than she, so — so — yes, so 
different in her tastes and bringing up ! 

89 


A Taste of Bohemia 

She and Baby were worlds away from 
her little cousin ; even Dee Dee was not 
very near. 

Soon Baby was gone again, and the sun 
beat down with terrible force, the music- 
student renewed her practicing, the child 
next door wept mournfully. Miss Du 
Long had washed the dishes, but it seemed 
to Barbara that never while she lived could 
she eat a sardine again. 

At five o’clock Roberta came, her hands 
full of flowers, her shirt-waist wilted, her 
hair uncurled with the heat. 

“You poor, poor child! Now don’t say 
you don’t feel better, for we have the grand- 
est scheme — we’re going to have a sail in 
the harbor in a steam-launch and eat our 
supper there. We’ll have Baby’s banjo, 
and the Doctor sings beautifully — and 
you’ll see what New Yorkers can do in the 
summer! Won’t it be fun? ” 

Barbara shook her head. 

“ Go right along, Roberta, don’t mind 
me, but I truly can’t. I must just stay 
here — it aches too hard.” 

“ Oh ! I’m so sorry. Baby, can Mr. 

90 


A Taste of Bohemia 

Belden come? What do you think they 
said in the office . . .” 

Barbara hardly regretted it. There 
would be no place for her, really. They 
forgot her in a moment, she was sure. 

She drank some beef-tea that Dee Dee 
brought her and consented to be car- 
ried in to her little bed for the night. A 
friend of Dee Dee’s, a nurse, like her, 
was to come in to stay with her — and 
they were off before she had fairly said 
good-by. 

Late in the hot heavy night her door 
opened and Roberta came in softly. 

“Are you asleep, dear?” she asked. 

“ No, Bobbie.” 

“ Oh, Barbara, I’m so happy ! I feel 
ashamed to have left you alone so, but then 
you couldn’t come, you know. You would 
have enjoyed it so ! I thought of what an 
experience it would have been for you. 
The sail was perfect and the supper was so 
good, and so many jolly clever people were 
there — just the sort you’d like to meet — 
regular Bohemians, you know ! ” 

Bab shuddered a little under the sheet 
9i 


A Taste of Bohemia 

that shielded her from the multitudinous 
flies. 

“ And, Barbara dearest, all the girls 
know, so I think you ought to — I am en- 
gaged to be married ! And I’m so happy ! 
We’re going to have the dearest little house 
in one of the suburbs — Dick hates a flat — 
and I’m not going to write much, but just 
take care of it. Won’t that be sweet ? ” 
“Yes, indeed, Roberta — I’m so glad,” 
she murmured drowsily. It was not a great 
enthusiasm, but Roberta was not in a crit- 
ical mood, and pressed a warm violet- 
scented kiss on her cousin’s cheek. 

“ And we’re going about, little by little, 
to buy the cunning things — spoons and 
tables and nutmeg-graters, you know ! ” 
she added, eagerly, “ but I mustn’t keep 
you awake, you poor dear — good-night ! ” 
In the morning the thermometer ap- 
proached foreboding heights, and Bab, af- 
ter a consultation with Miss Deane, who set 
about packing her trunk forthwith, an- 
nounced that she felt sure her head would 
never get better in all this heat. 

“ You know we get the breeze from the 
92 


A Taste of Bohemia 

water, Cousin Roberta,” she explained, 
“ and it’s always cooler there.” 

“ The child’s quite right,” added Dee 
Dee, “ she ought to get out of this.” 

“ But she hasn’t had a bit of a good time, 
except just one night,” said Roberta, unde- 
cidedly, “ and perhaps she’d feel better 
later. This afternoon we clean up — oh, 
no, I’m engaged for this afternoon — but 
we’ll clean up to-morrow morning and get 
ready for a spread. Then in the evening 
the whole crowd comes around, and they 
each bring something, and we have a right 
nice time — rabbit and oysters and ” 

“ It would be very, very interesting,” in- 
terrupted Bab, “but I really ought to go, 
Cousin Roberta. I know I ought not to 
stay here, feeling as I do. You see, you 
haven’t any — any — it really isn’t arranged 
for a sick person here.” 

“ No, that’s so,” Miss Du Long assented. 
“ Come again in the winter, when you’re 
feeling all right.” 

Dee Dee had gone out to get her a cab, 
for she was not able to walk, and as she 
lay resting before the little journey, she 
93 


A Taste of Bohemia 

caught snatches of the conversation in the 
bedroom. 

“ Goodness, yes — she’s just like her 
father ! Just that prim little air of decision ! 
She gets her talent from him, though he 
makes fun of it to her face. Not that he 
isn’t proud of her. 

“ — Write ? Why, of course ! You know 
he could have been in Dick’s place to-day, 
easily. You see, they all wrote. Cousin 
Will edits a big daily in Pittsburg, and 
Cousin Annie did some awfully clever 
things before she married. But Uncle 
Horace wanted one of the boys to carry 
on the business — it would break his heart 
to have it go out of the family, he said. 
And Cousin Horace was the youngest and 
his favorite. So he made him promise not 
to go in for literature like the others. 

“ — Oh, I suppose it was a blow. But he 
felt the mills were a big responsibility, so 
he gave up his job on the paper and went 
back home. Stayed there ever since. 

“ — So he told me. Says he has never 
regretted it. His mills are models for the 
State, I believe. But imagine giving up 
94 


A Taste of Bohemia 

literature for that! He had a stunning 
style. He got me my place, really. But 
it’s his fad never to mention it. He knows 
all the old set, though — Dick’s head and 
all those older men.” 

Barbara hardly knew how she got 
through her good-byes. Her head was in 
a whirl. Write? — her father write? And 
how she had patronized him and sat at 
Roberta’s feet — and he had got Roberta 
her place! Not that anyone could really 
patronize father ; he made too much fun. 

“ A stunning style ! ” That was her 
father — Roberta admitted it! 

How amused she had been at the quick- 
ness with which he had shuffled her papers 
into two piles — one big, one small. 

“ That,” pointing to the big one, “ doesn’t 
strike me as particularly valuable. This 
one,” with a hand on the little pile, “ might 
be viewed by anyone but a fond parent in 
a different light. The shorter the sentence, 
the clearer the thought, as a rule. You 
forget that sometimes, eh ? ” 

And he knew what he was talking about, 
it seemed ! Her father ! A stunning style! 
95 


A Taste of Bohemia 

They were in the big bustling station. 
“ Good-by, and come again when you feel 
better ! ” 

“ Yes, thank you, Miss Deane ! ” 

The city was dropping behind. She 
leaned back against her drawing-room seat 
and watched the fields slip by. How cool 
they looked, how empty : no Japanese lan- 
terns there! Nearer and nearer home — 
her pleasant quiet home. She grew 
stronger every minute, she thought, and 
leaving her trunk behind with the express- 
man, she walked up through the shady 
street. It was warm, oh, yes ! — but a clean 
quiet warmth; the piazza plants expanded 
in it, the kittens in the corner basked in it. 

How light and big the hall was, how still 
and neat the parlor and the study. 

“ Why, Miss Barb’ra ! How soon you’re 
back! Well, you look tired, and that’s a 
fact ! No, your mamma’s gone for the day 
a-visitin’, and your father he’s took the 
boys out sailin’. Some luncheon ? I should 
think you could! Minnie, you start the 
water in the tub, and after that you just get 
right inter bed, Miss Barb’ra, and Minnie’ll 
96 


A Taste of Bohemia 

bring it right up to you. Some good rich 
mutton broth with rice in it, now? We 
had mutton yist’day. And some scrambled 
eggs with parsley in ’em — that’s light and 
nourishing and a little dish o’ peaches ? ” 

“ Yes, yes, Hannah — anything! ” 

Oh, the good full linen-drawer! The 
fresh cleanly bath-room ! 

And then, on the threshold of her bed- 
room, she wept a little tear of pure joy. 
How open and restful and clear-spaced it 
was ! The pale-blue walls, the spotless 
white curtains, the creamy matting with 
blue-and-white jute rugs, the light graceful 
furniture of yellowish bird’s-eye maple, the 
few pleasant pictures — all welcomed her to 
their calm coolness. 

She slipped between the fresh sweet- 
smelling sheets and sniffed the lavendered 
linen pillows. What a blessing a real bed 
was! And four days ago she had wanted 
this taken into the attic, and a Bagdad- 
covered couch put in its place ! 

A little breeze swept in through the cur- 
tains; the lunch and the bath had made 
her drowsy. 


97 


A Taste of Bohemia 


“ I’ll take a nap, I think, Minnie.” 

“ Yes, Miss Barb’ra.” 

“ And — oh, Minnie ! just get that pile of 
papers out of the right-hand drawer of my 
desk — the big pile. Thank you. Yes, 
those are they. Just burn them in the 
kitchen fire, Minnie, and put that little pile 
in the pigeon-hole. And I’ll get up for 
dinner, if you’ll call me, Minnie. 

“ — No, I don’t want to eat in bed, I want 
to eat with the family. 

“ — Did I? Well, I don’t any more, 
then. I want to do just what they do. I’m 
a regular Philistine, Minnie — a regular 
Philistine ! ” 


98 








Her Stepmother 


































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9 

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9 > > 


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Her Stepmother 

H ELENA turned the little blue en- 
velope over in her hand, and studied 
the address curiously. 

“ This one is from Papa,” pointing to a 
big white one in her lap, “ but who would 
be writing from New York except him?” 

Her Aunt Ellen looked up from her egg- 
cup with a strange little smile. 

“ I should open it and see,” she advised, 
with the little air of reproof that always 
irritated her niece. 

There is no denying it. Helena and her 
aunt did not get along very well together. 
To begin with, Aunt Ellen was a practical 
lady with slight sympathy for Helena’s 
fads and fancies. She was not married, 
and her own young-girlhood was appar- 
ently too far away to have left her any 
memories of its needs or feelings. In the 
second place, Helena was rather spoiled by 
IOI 


Her Stepmother 

a father too loving to deny his little mother- 
less daughter any pleasure. With an 
equally indulgent grandmother, her only 
source of discipline for fourteen years, it is 
perhaps no great wonder that Aunt Ellen 
found her, on Grandmother Hunt's death, 
not the easiest of wards. She thought her 
niece selfish and opinionated, and told her 
so. Helena complained to her busy father 
in the anxious intervals of his professional 
duties that Aunt Ellen was narrow-minded 
and disagreeable. He looked grave, and 
wondered what was to be done with this 
child already growing so tall and graceful 
— and the office-bell would ring, and he 
was off. 

Two years they had lived together, and 
instead of smoothing over matters, as the 
doctor had hoped, the years had left Aunt 
Ellen and Helena more unsympathetic, 
more trying to each other, than at the be- 
ginning. To-day Helena felt that she had 
never seemed so dry, so prim, so utterly 
commonplace a relative. She considered 
with satisfaction a letter lying on her desk 
up-stairs addressed to her father, in which 


102 


Her Stepmother 

she had stated that this life was growing 
unbearable to her, and that, as he would not 
allow her to take the college preparatory 
course at the academy, she wanted him to 
consider very seriously sending Aunt Ellen 
home and giving up the house to his daugh- 
ter, who was surely old enough to manage 
it by now. She wondered what he would 
say — dear worried Papa ! For this spoiled 
little girl truly loved the father she was tor- 
menting, though he would hardly have 
thought so had he watched her read her 
mail that morning. 

She opened the blue envelope, and 
frowned a little. 

“ I don’t know who this is ” — turning to 
the signature, Alice E. Marsh. “ Who may 
she be?” 

“ My Dear Helena (for I cannot call 
you anything else): Your father mentions 
your name so often, I cannot let his letter 
go to you without this little note to accom- 
pany the photograph he insists that I shall 
send. I hope you will like it and me, too, 
a little — sometime. More than that I will 
not ask. I am not at all blind to the 
103 


Her Stepmother 

strangeness of the situation. I would 
have learned to know you more gradually 
if I could have done so safely, but your 
father’s letter will show you that his slight- 
est wish could not be denied at so criti- 
cal ” 

“ What does it all mean ? Who is Alice 
E. Marsh ? Isn’t this absurdly funny, 
Aunt Ellen? I don’t see any photograph 
— do you suppose one came? ” 

Aunt Ellen looked relieved. 

“ I am glad to see you so amused, my 
dear,” she said, nervously. “ It will prob- 
ably come in the next mail.” 

Helena stared at her. “ What is the 
matter with you, Aunt Ellen?” she asked, 
quickly, “are you— do you — who is Alice 
E. Marsh?” 

She did not understand her aunt’s face. 

“ Why does Papa want me to have her 
picture ? ” 

Aunt Ellen did not answer. 

Helena tore open her father’s letter, and, 
with a strange frightened thrill at her 
heart, began it: 

“My Dear Little Daughter: You have 
104 


Her Stepmother 

been for so long motherless that I have had 
all your love. Can you spare some of it 
now for ” 

And that was all of her father’s letter 
that Helena ever read. Crushing it in her 
hand she turned very white, and faced her 
aunt. 

“ Aunt Ellen, is Papa going to marry 
another woman ? ” she demanded in a low 
voice. 

“ I — I believe he is, Helena.” 

“ Is that why I am to see her picture ? ” 

“ I suppose so, Helena.” 

She walked over to the grate, and thrust 
both the letters in the fire. “ I will never 
look at it, nor her either,” she said, coldly, 
and left the room. 

She lay on her bed without knowing how 
she came there. She was too bitterly angry 
to cry. She had but one thought — her 
father’s treachery to her. So this was what 
he had been doing in New York! This 
was why for two weeks he had written but 
twice, and then for two more only tele- 
grams had come! And she had thought 
it was that course of medical lectures at 

105 


Her Stepmother 

Bellevue that was keeping him so terribly 
busy! He was tired of her: she was not 
enough for him, his own little daughter. 
And her mother — her real mother — what 
would she say? What would she feel if 
she knew? 

It was hard for Helena to carry this 
train of thought farther, for she could not 
remember her mother at all. She had 
often tried, but the first image that her 
thoughts held was that of her grandmother, 
who had carried her from babyhood to girl- 
hood, and to her she cried in her heart. 

Dear Grandmother Hunt, with her com- 
fortable lap and her kind smile, if she were 
only here to take her baby away from this 
dreadful place ! 

Who was this woman? When would 
she come? Could nothing be done — had 
she no rights? Could a step-mother be 
put over her without her consent? Must 
she obey her, a stranger? Would she 
change the house and send away the old 
servants, and take up all of Papa's time ? — 
and then she began to cry. There is no 
doubt she felt deeply grieved, and so she 
106 


Her Stepmother 

was, but that was not all. Down in the 
bottom of her heart rankled pride, hurt, 
offended pride. That she had not 
been asked; that she had not been told, 
even ; that she had not been enough ! 
Like a child of two or three she had 
been overlooked — nobody cared what she 
thought. 

Suddenly, like a flash, it came over her : 
had it been done for her? Was this per- 
son to be put over her to correct her and 
govern her? “ She shall never do it,” said 
the girl to herself. “ If Papa has married 
a nurse for me — ” and she set her white 
little teeth. The look on her tear-stained 
passionate face boded but little comfort 
to the woman whose kindly heart had 
prompted the little note. 

Helena did not leave her room that 
night, and Aunt Ellen, with singular tact, 
did not disturb her. She cried and tossed 
till very exhaustion put her to sleep, and 
in the morning a hard headache kept her 
in bed. For a day she lay listless, and 
would not eat, and the next day, in direct 
defiance of Aunt Ellen, she dragged herself 
107 


Her Stepmother 

out and went in a heavy storm to the office 
to mail a letter. It was to Miss Alice E. 
Marsh, and was such a letter as only a 
spoiled, hurt, sick child, wounded in her 
strongest point — her pride — could have 
written. She came back with wet feet, and 
brooded over the fire till her shivering 
thoroughly frightened Aunt Ellen, who 
sent her peremptorily to bed. Helena 
went, stupidly wondering why she obeyed, 
and fell into a dull sleep. When she woke 
it was late in the morning, and she heard 
Aunt Ellen whispering loudly outside the 
door. 

“James always said to get a trained 
nurse immediately in case of any fever — 
she had a high fever all night. I don’t 
know ” 

“ Does she know about her father’s — ” 
This was another voice. Aunt Ellen inter- 
rupted : 

“ No, he wouldn’t have her told. He in- 
sisted. He may have told her in the let- 
ter, but she tore it up without reading it, 
and burned it. Will you see her? ” 

The door opened, and Dr. Hart came in. 

108 


Her Stepmother 

Helena opened her eyes and scowled at 
him. 

“ How foolish ! I’m not sick at all,” she 
remonstrated, as he sat down profession- 
ally by the bed. But he shook his head. 

“ These are pretty hot hands ” 

“ She has been troubled with school 
work lately,” put in Aunt Ellen. 

Helena flashed a quick glance at her. 

“ You know nothing whatever about it, 
Aunt Ellen,” she said, decidedly. 

Dr. Hart raised his eyebrows. “ Come, 
come ! ” he thought, “ this little girl wants 
a stronger hand ! ” But he only said that 
bed for a day or two would make it all 
right, and left a powder and went away. 

As soon as she had heard the door slam 
Helena got up with what she intended for 
dignity, but what an unprejudiced observer 
might have mistaken for temper, and began 
to study her German. As she had locked 
the door of her room Aunt Ellen was help- 
less, and too proud to bicker with her. If 
Helena’s fits of temper ever had any excuse 
she felt that there was one now, and let her 
alone. 


109 


Her Stepmother 

For three days the angry girl kept up, 
her cold growing steadily worse; but on 
the fourth her pride left her, and she lay 
hot and aching in her disordered room, a 
confessed invalid. Strange thoughts came 
to her: she lived over again much of her 
child life, her head was unsteady, and she 
slept without knowing where, the dreams 
began. Her forehead was hot, her throat 
dry. Aunt Ellen was well-intentioned, but 
no nurse, and was deceived by the girl’s 
quiet and drowsiness. Only when Helena 
called out one night for Grandmother Hunt 
was she alarmed, and when Dr. Hart 
looked grave and asked for her father’s ad- 
dress, Aunt Ellen was utterly amazed. 

“ I thought she was getting on so well. 
I can’t exactly say about James — his let- 
ters will be forwarded . . 

Clearly there was little help in Aunt 
Ellen. The doctor sniffed angrily. “ Is 
this the person to manage a high-spirited 
girl ? ” he thought, but he only said with 
a smile: 

“ I’ll take the responsibility, then, Miss 
Ritch, and order a nurse up from the Belle- 
no 


Her Stepmother 

vue supply. Oh, no! nothing serious, 
only she wants great attention, and we 
don’t want typhoid, you know. I’ll send 
right down.” 

There was another day — a hot, tossing, 
aching day. Aunt Ellen pottered about 
the room, asking what she had better do, 
and what Helena would like, till the girl 
cried with weakness and impatience. 
Though she had said not a word to her aunt 
about her father, and absolutely refused 
to continue the subject when it was intro- 
duced, yet Aunt Ellen’s presence kept her 
trouble before her mind, and she went over 
and over the unhappy situation till her 
heart was breaking with pride and real sor- 
row — sorrow that she had not been able 
to fill his heart. 

“ Shall I bring up an egg, Helena? Do 
you want it boiled ? ” 

“ I never want to see a thing to eat ! I 
wish you would go away ! ” she burst out, 
ungraciously. Aunt Ellen sighed. 

“ Feeling as you do, Helena, you will 
not regret that Dr. Hart has sent in for 
a nurse,” she said in a martyred tone, 
hi 


Her Stepmother 

and Helena, repentant, tried to answer 
kindly. 

“ Very well. It will be better, perhaps. 
I don’t mean to be cross— * ” and she drifted 
off. 

When she woke it was another day, 
though she did not know it. She had had 
a bad night, and felt very weak and irri- 
table. In half-delirious dreams she had 
been hunted through the house by a cruel 
woman, who insulted her in every way, 
only to be justified by her father, who was 
terribly changed, and who would not kiss 
her, but waved her cold angry little note 
over her head and teased her with it. 

She screamed and opened her eyes. But 
her scream was only a gasp, and did not 
catch the ear of the woman in the white 
cap and apron who was moving about the 
room. Helena watched her through half- 
shut eyes. This must be the nurse. She 
was quietly putting the disordered place to 
rights, and little by little the clothes disap- 
peared, the glasses and cups melted away, 
the photographs were straightened, the rug 
shaken, the school-books piled on a table. 

1 12 


Her Stepmother 

Even the little silver toilet articles were laid 
in a polished row, and the faded violets 
were carried off. She came in again, and 
as Helena’s eyes were closed, apparently, 
she went on with her work. A light fire 
was piled on the little hearth, and as the 
cheerful flames shot up, she opened both 
the windows, and for the first time in a 
week a great breath of fresh February 
air swept through the room. Yet again 
this comfort-bringer returned from a 
journey to the hall, carrying a thin glass 
bowl, with a handful of deep rich roses 
drooping over the sides. As she put it 
on the table her eyes met Helena’s, and 
she smiled. 

“ How do you do ? I’m the nurse, Miss 
Evans,” she said pleasantly. 

Helena looked curiously at the tall slen- 
der woman with the snowy cap and apron. 
She had deep brown eyes and a beautiful 
smile, an air of quiet power, too, that struck 
the girl from the first. She guessed her to 
be about thirty. 

“ Now that you are awake, Miss Ritch, 
I will make your bed,” said the nurse in a 
ii3 


Her Stepmother 

matter-of-fact tone. Helena had expected 
a more elaborate greeting, some explana- 
tion of her presence, some polite expres- 
sion of sympathy to rub off the embarrass- 
ment of their mutual strangeness, but the 
nurse seemed to feel no embarrassment 
whatever, no necessity for explanation of 
any kind. She moved toward the bed with 
a pile of clean linen in her hand and drew 
back the counterpane. Helena raised her 
arm, and caught at the corner of it. 

“ No, thank you/' she said, brusquely. 
“ This does very well. I am quite com- 
fortable ; I don’t feel like getting up. To- 
morrow, perhaps ” 

“ You will not need to get up at all,” re- 
turned the other pleasantly, “ and you will 
feel much more comfortable with the fresh 
things.” 

She loosened the counterpane from the 
foot and drew it off. Helena was just weak 
enough to be unreasonably irritated. 

“ I am the best judge of what will make 
me comfortable, I think,” she said, crossly, 
“and I prefer to stay as I am,” and she 
turned over, grasping the sheet. 

1 14 


Her Stepmother 

“ My dear Miss Ritch, you are the worst 
judge in the world,” said the nurse, easily 
but decidedly, “ and I am here to judge for 
you. I am not a housemaid. I am a 
trained nurse, and whatever I do for you is 
the best thing, you may be sure. Give me 
the sheet, please ! ” 

Half unconsciously Helena’s hand 
slipped from the sheet. Never had she 
been so flatly corrected, so peremptorily 
ordered about. Yet it did not occur to her 
to resist. In a few moments she lay cool 
and clean from a quick skilful bath, among 
fresh sweet linen, meditating on the 
strange sense of pleasure that mingled with 
her confusion. This was an unusual kind 
of woman, truly. Perhaps all nurses were 
so. Perhaps she would learn to be a nurse 
and wear a white cap, and leave a hateful 
household — she was asleep. 

For a week Helena saw only her nurse, 
and in that week she had already learned 
to admire her with the deep affectionate 
admiration that few girls have not at some 
time felt for an older woman. She found 
herself obeying without a murmur, submit- 
115 


Her Stepmother 

ting to correction with unheard-of docility, 
even confiding and asking advice now and 
then, when convalescence permitted longer 
conversations. Aunt Ellen she did not 
see, and did not ask for. She wondered if 
the nurse thought this strange, but Miss 
Evans never expressed the faintest curi- 
osity as to her patient’s family relations, 
nor, indeed, on any subject. Helena won- 
dered if she had none. One day, when the 
remembrance of her great trouble came 
over her strong and hot, she turned on a 
sudden impulse to the nurse. 

“ Did Dr. Hart tell you why I was 
sick ? ” she asked. 

“ He said you were a delicate girl, and 
that the academy rushed the students too 
fast: I could draw my own conclusions,” 
replied Miss Evans quietly. 

“ Did he say nothing of — of what had 
happened? ” 

“ Nothing at all.” 

“ I will tell you, then,” said Helena 
quickly, with a mounting color. “ My 
father is going to marry again ! ” 

She sank back on the pillows, and burst 
116 


Her Stepmother 

into a storm of tears. For a few minutes 
there was no sound but the drip of the 
icicles outside the window and the girl’s 
sobs. Finally she raised her head and 
looked at the nurse. Miss Evans was sew- 
ing, and did not stop the needle for a mo- 
ment as she said: 

“ Is she such a very disagreeable woman 
as that? ” 

Helena stared. 

“ I don’t know ; I never saw her,” she 
answered. 

“ Oh ! ” said the nurse. 

Helena felt a trifle uneasy. Was she 
ashamed, she wondered? But no, of what 
should any girl be ashamed, in the way of 
grief and anger, who was treated as she 
had been? 

“ I — I — you don’t seem to see. I am 
all my father has,” she began. 

“ It seems, however, that you are not 
enough, if he is going to marry,” returned 
Miss Evans calmly. 

Helena gasped. There was absolutely 
nothing to say to such a brutal statement. 
She had tried to avoid telling herself just 
ii 7 


Her Stepmother 

that, and now it was hurled at her from a 
stranger ! 

The nurse looked up from her sewing. 

“ Of course,” she continued, “ I can see, 
my dear, what cuts you, but I am sure you 
need not feel that you have failed just be- 
cause you are not enough for your father. 
I know that when a girl has tried for so 
long to fill her mother’s place, to anticipate 
every want of a tired overworked man, 
to interest herself in his affairs, to make 
his leisure hours, at least, amusing, to try, 
in a word, to be both daughter and ” 

“ Oh, stop ! ” 

Helena was buried in pillows. She felt 
as if she had been plunged in an icy bath 
without any warning. Her head was in a 
whirl, her heart was beating to suffocation. 
Was this — was all this what a stranger took 
for granted? Had all this been her com- 
monplace duty? 

“ And you are a delicate girl,” added the 
nurse quietly, “ and have not the strength 
for such a responsibility, with school duties 
into the bargain, and your own friendships 
and amusements.” 

118 


Her Stepmother 

Helena writhed under the sheet. What 
had she ever considered except these : 
“ Her own friendships and amusements 
and her school duties ? ” 

She was too utterly stunned to cry, as 
in a flash of lightning she saw a picture 
she had never seen or dreamed of before. 
“ A tired overworked man ; interest her- 
self in his affairs; make his leisure hours 
amusing — ” That was her father! She 
had never thought of him as needing any 
help, any sympathy. She, the little mother- 
less daughter, the baby, had been the one 
to be considered. Everyone had thought 
that 

“ And believe me, I know just what it is 
to have been the confidant, the companion, 
the close friend of one’s father, and then to 
see that place begin to be filled by someone 
else. But I wonder if the grief is not just 
a little selfish? After all, one wants the 
best for him just as one wanted it before — 
isn’t it so ? ” 

She stopped sewing, and had Helena 
been looking at her, she would have seen 
that the competent firm hands of her nurse 
119 


Her Stepmother 

were trembling a little. But Helena was 
not looking. Her eyes were buried in her 
pillow. She wished the sheet had been 
heavy enough to smother her out of sight 
forever. That last touch had been too 
much. “ The confidant, the companion, 
the close friend ! ” 

If any girl who had been all that felt 
selfish when she grieved at giving it up, 
what should she feel who had never been 
any of it? She was not fit to feel sorry, 
even. Dog in the manger — to refuse to 
give up a place she had never filled ! She 
thought of her miserable little letter to 
Alice E. Marsh, and blushed to her neck. 
And this was perhaps to be the first com- 
rade her poor lonely father had had for 
sixteen years ! 

“ As for the hardest part of all, the fear 
that any stranger would think of trying 
to take one’s mother’s place, I think that is 
a mistake all girls make. I remember I 
was afraid of that.” 

Helena groaned. Nobody had ever 
taken such a place for her — she had not 
expected it. 


120 


Her Stepmother 

“ But no woman would be so foolish,” 
added the nurse, “ to be a friend, a com- 
panion, an adviser ” 

“ Oh, if it were only you ! ” said Helena, 
and gasped a moment after. She had con- 
sidered it ! She had accepted it ! She was 
even now wondering how she should efface 
that letter ! 

The nurse laughed a little. Her cheeks 
were as red as Helena’s own. 

“ This photograph came for you a day 
or two ago,” she said. Will you have it 
on the bed ? ” Helena’s hand trembled, 
but she held it out bravely. 

“ Yes, thank you, Miss Evans,” and she 
broke the big yellow envelope. She hard- 
ly knew herself: she felt so humbled, so 
exhausted, SO' mean — and so glad, some- 
how, when she thought of her father. At 
least he was going to be loved properly, at 
last, by someone who was better able than 
she to do it, and show it. 

“ Before you open it,” interrupted the 
nurse, “ I want to tell you a story — may 
I ? ” With her hand on the girl’s she went 
on, quickly: 


121 


Her Stepmother 

“ I — I had a friend,” she began, “ a 
trained nurse like me. One of the lectur- 
ing physicians of her hospital was taken 
very suddenly and seriously ill with an in- 
fluenza, which rapidly developed into 
pneumonia. She was given the case, and 
nursed him till he recovered. She — she 
admired him very much. Just before he 
started South for the few weeks of his con- 
valescence he told her about his life, and 
his little daughter and her life. He asked 
her if she could give up nursing to come 
and live with him and his little daughter. 
He said he thought she could help them 
both. He — he greatly over-estimated the 
work of the nurse, and insisted that she 
had saved his life. Any nurse would, of 
course, have done the same thing. What 
interested the nurse greatly was that she 
had been left alone, too, and had found in 
her father’s second wife her greatest friend. 
She hoped to be something of this to the 
girl, in whom she was greatly interested. 
Among other things she persuaded the 
girl’s father that the life she would get at 
college — one of the dreams of the girl — 


122 


Her Stepmother 

would be a very good thing for her, and she 
told him that if the academy preparation 
was too hard, she would be more than glad 
to fit the girl herself — the nurse was a col- 
lege woman. 

“ She found, however, that the girl did 
not like her, did not care to live with 
her ” 

Helena tore the picture from the en- 
velope. Below the white-capped figure 
with the lovely eyes were written the words 
Alice Evans Marsh. 

“Is Papa better — well?” she cried, a 
sudden terror in her eyes. “ Why was I 
not told ? ” 

“ He told you in a letter,” said the nurse. 
“ Did you not read it ? ” 

Helena blushed. “ Is he well? ” she re- 
peated feverishly. 

“ He is quite well. He is coming in a 
few days. He has been to the South. He 
is coming to see if the nurse he sent to his 
daughter has accomplished what they both 
hoped she might. Because if she has 


“ Ah,” said Helena softly, “ if she had 
123 


Her Stepmother 

not, then his daughter would be even more 
of a pig — yes, a selfish pig — than she is.” 

She kissed the photograph quickly. 
“ You are much too pretty and good and 
clever for his daughter, though,” she said 
to the nurse in the picture, “ she did not 
deserve you. She wrote you a nasty let- 
ter ” 

“ If I have forgotten it,” said the other, 
holding out her hands to Helena, “ need 
you remember it, my dear? ” 


124 


A Singer’s Story 


* 


* ' 9*4 

<« 

i > *«■ 


— 









I 











A Singer’s Story 

“QO you think there's a story about it? ” 
O said the Singer, tapping her adorer’s 
cheek in a friendly way and looking out 
over the narrow country road rich with 
October red and yellow. Her adorer was 
sixteen or thereabouts, with great braids of 
auburn hair and a merry freckled face, at 
present brimming with admiration and joy. 
And why not? Had she not for three suc- 
cessive nights listened to the most wonder- 
ful music she had ever dreamed of? Was 
she not the delighted hostess of one of the 
greatest singers of the day? And, most 
of all, had not the Singer herself desired to 
hear her voice, pronounced it more than 
good, and promised to take her — her, 
Marion Winthrop — down to New York to 
her own old teacher to learn to sing “ I 
Know that my Redeemer Liveth ” ? What 
12 7 


A Singer’s Story 

more could any girl ask ? “ I almost know 

there is,” she answered, shyly, touching old 
Peter lightly with the whip and turning 
him toward the wood-road. 

“ As soon as father heard you were com- 
ing, I thought you must have some reason 
for passing by Springfield and stopping in 
this little country town. And then, when 
father asked you to come here because the 
hotel is so bad, and the manager said you 
wanted rooms for a few days after the 
festival, I was sure you wanted to find 
out something — or remember something. 
And when the Springfield people wanted 
you to stay there, and you wouldn’t con- 
sider it for a moment, but would rather 
stay with us, where you can’t be entertained 
nearly so well ” 

“ I was never entertained more delight- 
fully,” said the Singer, softly. “Every 
walk, every drive, has been dearer to me 
than you can imagine. I have been dream- 
ing of this visit ever since I came to this 
country. I have wanted to come here, to 
sing here, so much that I have been willing 
to work very hard to get all the others to 
128 


A Singer’s Story 

come here with me. And think of all the 
people I have inconvenienced ! ” 

Marion thought of all the crowds that 
had thronged the great pine-board audi- 
torium, of the city people, the families from 
the little villages round about, and the 
visitors from Boston even, that had flooded 
the little town and added an excitement to 
its hum-drum quiet, and caught her breath. 
All for this woman ! All because she pre- 
ferred to sing here ! They would come to 
hear her from anywhere, it seemed. And, 
remembering the great, solemn Mass, the 
wonderful oratorio, the anthems where the 
big chorus, the heavy orchestra, had 
seemed the merest background for this 
woman’s magnificent voice, she did not 
blame them. 

“ You have been here before?” she 
asked, flicking a fly off old Peter’s ear. 

“ I lived here eight years,” said the 
Singer, “ till I was sixteen years old, and 
went away to learn to sing. That was 
twelve years ago, and I have not been able 
to get back till now. I was a little lonely, 
timid child here ; I suffered the great dis- 
129 


A Singer’s Story 

appointment of my life here ; I found my 
great fortune here — and all by chance. 
And I live it all over again now.” 

Marion dropped the reins on old Peter’s 
back in her excitement, and begged the 
Singer with her gray eyes. 

“ Would you really care to hear about 
it? It’s not very exciting, and only strange 

in one place. But if you care enough ” 

Marion’s face was more than an answer, 
and the Singer smiled and dropped her big 
soft voice to a lower, intimate key that was 
in itself a delight. Old Peter fell into a 
walk undisciplined, and the story began. 

“ When I was eight years old my father 
died, and the shock was too much for my 
mother, who had been an invalid ever since 
I was born. They were buried together in 
the little Minnesota town where we had 
always lived, and I was sent on, a quiet 
little black-dressed child, to Massachu- 
setts, where Uncle Ezra and Aunt Susan 
lived. It was well that I had learned to 
live by myself and play softly, or I should 
never have been allowed to stay a week in 
the house that I was to grow up in. Uncle 
13 ° 


A Singer’s Story 

Ezra was a fussy, nervous little man who 
hated children. Aunt Susan had inherited 
the same delicacy and weak constitution 
that had kept my mother an invalid. An 
ordinary romping, growing little West- 
erner would have driven them both to a 
madhouse, I have no doubt. But I was 
used to musing away the mornings and 
dreaming through the afternoons, imagin- 
ing myself in strange Arabian Nights’ sit- 
uations, reading what books I could lay 
my hands on, rambling about out-of-doors 
or through the quiet halls of a house that 
must not be disturbed by laugh or song or 
shout. There was a sister of my uncle’s 
living in the next house, a faded, tired 
spinster, broken down by twenty years of 
school-teaching; and at her request, for 
she dreaded her enforced idleness, my edu- 
cation was given to her. She was a good 
drill-mistress, and for six years she dragged 
an uninterested pupil along the paths of 
knowledge, better perhaps than anyone else 
could have done. For her chief task was 
always to hold my wandering attention. 

“ One day, while she was explaining 
I3i 


A Singer’s Story 

some arithmetical process or other and I 
was more than usually indifferent, she lost 
her temper and scolded me soundly. 

“ 4 You are a lazy, stupid girl,’ she cried, 
‘ and at your age I could do twice as well 
as you. Besides all that you know I could 
sew neatly and play all my scales, and you 
don’t know one note from another ! ’ 

“ I never had a quick temper, and I didn’t 
mind her sharpness, so I merely straight- 
ened up and paid better attention. When 
the lesson was over, and she was somewhat 
mollified, ‘ What are scales, Miss Sarah ? ’ 
I asked. 

“ She got out an old-fashioned ‘ First 
Book in Music,’ and gave me my first music 
lesson on an old wheezy melodeon, and 
that day my life began. 

“ Stupid as I was at other things, I 
learned the notes very quickly. Much as 
I hated to study, I worked hard at my 
books to get time to practise. Indeed, my 
continual groanings and wheezings at the 
tuneless old organ quite wore on Miss 
Sarah’s nerves, and I was obliged to con- 
fine myself to using my new treasure but 
132 


A Singer’s Story 

two hours in the day, and that not every 
day. So my practicing, unlike most chil- 
dren’s, was a pleasure, a longed-for time, 
not an ungracious task. Moreover, if Miss 
Sarah had callers or a headache, and if I, 
for some reason, had offended her or failed 
in my lessons, I was denied even one hour 
of joy. Not to be utterly deprived, how- 
ever, I confiscated a great pile of old music 
from a dusty shelf, and pretending that 
my bureau was the old melodeon, I would 
read this by the hour, humming the tunes 
unconsciously as I strummed on the 
wood and worked my knees on imaginary 
pedals. 

“ And now I have to tell you the stran- 
gest thing. A young reporter asked me 
a while ago, among other things, what my 
childish musical life had been. 

“ ‘ I had none,’ I told him. 

“ ‘ But surely you sang from the cradle? ’ 
he remonstrated. 

“ ‘ My dear sir,’ I answered, * I never to 
my knowledge opened my mouth to sing 
a note till I was thirteen years old ! ’ 

“ And that is the truth. It is impossible 

133 


A Singer’s Story 

for you to realize what a quiet, suppressed, 
unnatural life I led. My mother was al- 
ways on the verge of nervous prostration ; 
my father was watching and guarding until 
she died, that not a shock or unexpected 
sound should come to her ; we lived at the 
extreme edge of a tiny village, and saw not 
three guests in the month. Father taught 
me what little I knew. We never went to 
church, though I learned the catechism 
and a collect every Sunday, and mother 
thought the children of the village too 
rough for me to play with. So, as a sim- 
ple matter of fact, I never heard anybody 
sing: I never knew it could be done. 
When Mother had an unusually good day 
Father would hum a little and take me for 
a walk, whistling sometimes. But that 
was all the music I heard. At Uncle Ezra’s 
nobody sang, of course. We lived at the 
very end of the town, where the little chapel 
stands now, and the only house near 
enough to be called a neighbor's was the 
large house the Fresh Air Fund has used 
for two years, the keeper tells me. It was 
called the Edwards’s place by everybody, 
134 


A Singer's Story 

then, and never occupied so far as I knew. 
It had, as now, magnificent grounds, with a 
great stone wall all around and a deep 
pond at the side of the house. It was en- 
chanted land to me, and through a break 
in the gate I scrambled in almost every day 
to wander about and play my little lonely 
games. 

“ I had hummed over, as I said, sheets 
and sheets of simple, old-fashioned music, 
and unknown to myself, I had become a 
ready and fluent reader. Miss Sarah had 
taught me all she knew, and I had played 
all of her ‘ pieces ' on the jerky little melo- 
deon. It never occurred to me to try to 
find any more. We had no money to buy 
music ; Aunt Sarah certainly had not. One 
day, to find the very last of the precious 
pile, I went down on my knees in the closet 
and dug out an old book of ballads. Aunt 
Sarah — I got to calling her Aunt in time — 
had never sung at all, and this book was not 
hers, but a friend's. It was a friend of long 
ago, and the pages were yellowed by the 
mould of the damp closet. I took it up 
and saw the words printed above the staff, 
135 


A Singer’s Story 

and the accompaniment of a few regular 
chords below them. Ridiculous as it may 
seem to you, I had never seen anything like 
that. Of course I had read of songs and 
of people who sung, but I always thought 
of it vaguely as a kind of recitation to 
music — a story told somewhat differently. 
So I tried to play the air and say the words. 
It was not a great success. I hummed the 
tune through, and then, by a sort of in- 
stinct, hummed the words softly. It gave 
me a queer little feeling of pleasure. I 
sang the verse again and then the others, 
growing very excited all the time. It 
never occurred to me to sing in any but the 
softest conversational voice — it would have 
annoyed Aunt Sarah. As it was, she soon 
told me to stop, and a headache prevented 
my playing for a day or two. But I did 
not care. I took the precious book home, 
and sang all the ballads through that night. 
Once when my voice rose above a soft 
humming, Uncle Ezra irritably called up 
to me to be still, and fearful of losing my 
new joy, I fled to the attic with a candle 
and hummed happily till very late. The 

136 


A Singer’s Story 

next day, after lessons, I went up to the 
Edwards place and roamed about, singing 
contentedly as I went. 

'‘That was out-of-doors, and I might per- 
fectly well have shouted had I wished, but 
it never occurred to me to do so. In the 
first place, it might have called attention 
from some passer-by ; in the next place, it 
never seemed necessary in the least. I 
thought it was a kind of musical reading, 
and my only thought was to make the idea 
plain, in the subdued fashion I had been 
brought up to. 

“ I had a happy summer with my music, 
but in the fall a sad thing happened: sad 
in itself, but tragic in its consequences 
as far as I was concerned. Aunt Sarah 
caught a heavy cold, which ran into pneu- 
monia, and after a short sickness she died. 
I was very sorry, for I had spent a great 
deal of time with her, and though she was 
not a lovable woman, she had been the 
only real teacher I had ever had; and 
then, she had given me music! But my 
sorrow at her death was swallowed up in 
an agony of dread when I learned that 
137 


A Singer’s Story 

her house was to be auctioned off, and 
her last possession sold to pay off a little 
mortgage. 

“ ‘ Have you anything of Aunt Sarah’s ? ’ 
asked Aunt Susan. 

“ ‘ Only a pile of music,’ I replied, hes- 
itatingly. 

“ ‘ Bring it right over,’ she said. 

“ I don’t like to think about that time. 
It was terrible. I knew that Uncle Ezra 
could not afford to gratify my whim of buy- 
ing the melodeon. I could not play it 
there. I went so far as to beg for the 
music, a thing I had never done before, but 
he had been obliged to pay part of the un- 
expected expense of Aunt Sarah’s sickness, 
and every dollar counted with him. I think 
if he had realized what it meant to me — 
but he could not see, and I was never a 
teaser. So they were sold, and I never saw 
the ballad-book again. 

“ For three months I dragged along, 
almost sick with loneliness. I was nearly 
fifteen, and I had no girl friend, no regular 
occupation but tending Aunt Susan, who 
grew weaker in the winter; no school-life, 

138 


A Singer’s Story 

for I dreaded going among girls of my own 
age, and persuaded Uncle Ezra that I could 
study by myself ; and what was worse, no 
hope for the future. I seemed to myself 
doomed to wait upon my aunt, and finally, 
when we were left alone, upon my uncle. 
And I did not grudge it, for I knew the 
debt I owed them, but I felt very sad and 
hopeless. I have felt sometimes that what- 
ever good-fortune has befallen me since, it 
can never quite efface the bitter, lonely 
sadness of that time. 

“ But there came a change. One clear 
day, late in the winter, I was wandering 
about in the Edwards place when I spied 
an open side - door. Once or twice a 
month a caretaker aired the house and 
went over it, I had heard, and evidently 
she was there now. Some impulse led 
me up to the door and, before I knew 
it, I had slipped in. I walked softly 
through a deserted, dusty conservatory, a 
little sitting-room, a great wide hall, and 
stood in the long parlor. It was beauti- 
fully furnished in rich heavy brocades, 
with busts and pictures and bronzes and 
139 


A Singer’s Story 

deep soft rugs, but I did not see them, 
for at the end of the room stood an open 
grand piano. 

“ I had never seen one in my life, but I 
knew, I knew ! I rushed to it, and crying 
with excitement and unconsciously pedal- 
ling as if it had been a melodeon, I touched 
the dear keys and played my simple old 
songs. Then, when my excitement died 
away, I did the strangest thing that ever 
I did. I deliberately stopped playing, 
though I could have sat there for hours, 
and hid myself behind a heavy curtain. I 
waited there nearly an hour till the care- 
taker came, and watched her close the 
piano and put a cover on it, and lock the 
parlor door and go out by a side entrance. 
I heard the side door close, I heard the 
house door close, I heard, in the clear cold 
air, the outer gate slam. Then I deliber- 
ately came out and played my fill. How 
I had the courage I don’t know, for I was 
a fairly timid girl, but my blood was up: 
it was my only chance. 

“ Beside the piano was a great set of 
shelves crowded with music. I feasted 


140 


A Singer’s Story 

royally on it, playing what I could, hum- 
ming the rest. There were several bound 
books of what the title-page said were ora- 
torios. One called the * Messiah ’ inter- 
ested me, and I played what I could of it. 
I found soon, as I ran over it, what I 
thought then, what I think now, the most 
beautiful song in the world. When I first 
sang ‘ I Know that my Redeemer Liveth,’ 
I probably murdered it horribly, but it has 
never affected me more deeply since. I 
cried and laughed at once. I wonder now 
that I did not sing out, but not only long 
usage, but the fear of discovery, kept my 
voice soft and low. 

“ When it was quite dark I opened a 
long French window and slipped out to the 
ground. I closed the window carefully 
and went home, the happiest girl in the 
world. To do me justice, I never for a 
moment thought of the danger to the prop- 
erty through the open window. I only 
knew that here was food for my starved 
soul, and I took this means of gratifying 
what was now the desire of my life. And 
then came a year of happiness. Impos- 
141 


A Singer’s Story 

sible as it may seem, for one whole year I 
came for varying lengths of time, every 
day almost, to the Edwards place. It was 
not at all a popular place, for all its beauty. 
The walks to it were all bad, the times I 
chose were busy hours for working-people, 
and the idlers all congregated at the other 
end of the village. I found out when the 
caretaker came, and avoided her carefully. 
She was hardly to be blamed for not dis- 
covering the unlocked window, for there 
were heavy inside blinds behind heavy cur- 
tains, and I pulled them both before I shut 
the sash. I never once entered another 
room, or paid the slightest attention to the 
ornaments or furnishings of the parlor. I 
came for the music, and I took nothing 
else. I wonder to-day how I dared to do 
it, for I had a good conscience of my own, 
and despised anything underhand ; but be- 
yond the fact of my doing it secretly, which 
would in any other case have troubled me, 
I don’t know that it was such a great sin, 
after all! The music was going to waste 
there — indeed, it was mostly yellow with 
age and the piano was in none too good 
142 


A Singer’s Story 

tune, and I was literally pining away for it. 
So I took it, and hurt nobody. 

“ I am growing too long, my dear, so I 
will skip any further description of my 
lonely happy year. I grew tall and strong 
and tended my uncle and aunt willingly, 
studying a little, too, though I am afraid 
not much, and revelling in music. There 
were stacks of it there, all good, and I de- 
voured it all. There was a great deal of 
opera and oratorio and solo music gener- 
ally, and though the instrumental scores 
were too difficult for the most part, yet 
I made some success with them, and I 
learned the vocal parts entire. I was quite 
contented and happy humming my little 
songs and learning new ones every day, 
and I fully believe I should have been do- 
ing it now had it not been that one day, 
as I was picking out a difficult aria from 
some Italian opera, I heard a sound, and, 
turning hastily, to my horror I saw a little 
old gentleman staring quizzically at me. 
I must have grown quite scarlet, for I have 
a thin skin and blush easily. 

'■ ‘ Qh ! ’ I cried, ' must I go ? ’ 

143 


A Singer’s Story 

“ Now, strange as it may seem, it was 
that idiotic question that saved me. Had 
I faltered or apologized or run away, I 
should never have returned in all prob- 
ability. But so whimsical was the little 
gentleman that the sight of a young lady 
in a black gown, with a long tail of auburn 
hair, playing his piano and seeming rather 
vexed than ashamed at his coming, amused 
him greatly. 

“‘Why, no, you needn’t go,’ he said, 
with a chuckle. ‘ Do you come often ? ’ 

“ ‘ Every day, sir,’ I answered, ‘ and — 
and it’s all I want to do as long as I live ! ’ 

“ ‘ Well, well ! ’ said he, dropping into a 
chair. ‘ Suppose you sing me something ; 
do you happen to know a song I’m very 
fond of— “ Allan Water ”?’ 

“ Indeed I did : it was the first song in 
the ballad-book. I sang it in my usual 
soft tone, speaking the words very clearly. 
It was the first time I had ever sung to 
anyone in my life, and it gave me a de- 
licious little thrill. I was not at all afraid. 

“ ‘ Do you know “ Barbara Allen ” ? ’ he 
said, when I had finished. That was the 
144 


A Singer’s Story- 

fourth song in the ballad-book, and I knew 
that backward. So I sang ‘ Barbara Al- 
len/ 

“ * “ Mary of Argyle ” ? ’ said he. So I 
sang that, too. Then, all at once, I was 
telling him all about my life, and what 
a poor thing it had been till his music and 
his piano made it a contented one. He 
coughed and blew his nose a great deal, 
and patted me on the shoulder. 

“ ‘ Come over to-morrow night and sing 
some more/ he said, and then before I 
knew it, he had shown me out of the great 
door. 

“ For some reason or other I did not tell 
Uncle Ezra ; it seemed too sweet a secret. 
And perhaps, too, I had a sneaking fear 
he would be angry at my presumption. 
But the next afternoon I went to the 
window before I thought, and according 
to my habit, began to play. I remem- 
bered that I was not alone in the house, 
and turned to find the old gentleman in 
the doorway. 

“ Queerly enough, my very rudeness 
pleased him. 


145 


A Singer’s Story 

“ ‘ Well, fairy, did you fly in again? ’ he 
chuckled. ‘ Sing me “ Allan Water ” ! ’ 

" I sang it, and to my surprise, he 
turned away from me and asked, 4 How 
was it ? ’ A strange man lifted his head 
from a great high-backed chair I had not 
seen in the shadow, and came up to me. 

“ ‘ Sing out, my dear, sing out ! ’ he said, 
as easily as though we were old friends. 
‘ Why do you hold it in so ? ’ 

“ I was too amazed to be frightened. 

“ ‘ Do you mean sing louder? ’ I asked. 
“ ‘ Why, yes,’ he answered, looking at me 
curiously. ‘ Sing as you ordinarily do.’ 

“ ‘ But I always sing like this,’ said I. 

“ ‘ Do you mean that you never sang 
any louder than you were just singing?’ 
he asked incredulously. 

“ ‘ Certainly not,’ I replied. ‘ Why 
should I ? Couldn’t you hear the words ? ’ 
“ ‘ Very well indeed,’ he answered, 
quickly, 4 but I want more tone. Suppose 
I were out-of-doors, how could I hear ? ’ 

“ He came up to the piano and sat down. 
‘ What big piece do you know? ’ he asked. 
“ I don’t know what possessed me, but 
146 


A Singer’s Story 

I answered immediately, ‘ I know a song 
called, “ I Know that my Redeemer Liv- 
eth.” Shall I sing that ? ’ 

“ ‘ Oh, you do ! ’ he exclaimed. * Well, 
go ahead,’ and he laid his fingers on the 
keys. I had expected to play the accom- 
paniment myself. * Do you know it?’ I 
asked, doubtfully. He smiled. 

“ ‘ I think I can manage it,’ he said, 
pleasantly. Then he looked up at me. 
‘ My dear,’ he added, ‘if you have any voice, 
show it to us. Sing till your throat hurts. 
Sing as loud as you can. Don’t be fright- 
ened.’ 

“ Then he began to play. I have often 
wondered that I had the strength to sing 
at all, after I heard that introduction. Re- 
member, Aunt Sarah’s melodeon instruc- 
tions and my own feeble tinklings were all 
the music I had heard. And when that 
great rich body of tone rang out through 
the house, I was almost too entranced to 
open my mouth. He played very loud, 
and I realized hopelessly that I could never 
be heard against that — never ! 

“ Then I set my teeth, and declared that 
I47 ; 


A Singer’s Story 

they should hear me. It occurred to me 
suddenly that if necessary, I could scream. 
So I opened my mouth, and for the first 
time in my life, I sang with all my might. 

“ I cannot tell you the effect. I had 
never heard my voice before. It fright- 
ened me, it was enormous ! It swelled and 
sank and rose. Oh, it could not possibly 
be mine! It shook my whole body; it 
echoed through the great house; it hurt 
my throat. I was frightened, I say, and 
yet I realized that I had never sung till 
now. Here I had been whispering these 
wonderful words, and they should be 
shouted through a trumpet ! 

“ ‘ Yet in my desk shall I see God! ’ As 
I said that I thought the whole town must 
hear me and wonder. 

“ It was over. Like a girl in a dream, 
I saw his hands drop from the keys and his 
head turn to me. There was a deathly 
stillness. I had a sickening fear that they 
were angry, disgusted with me, that I had 
made too much noise. I had been shout- 
ing, not singing. The stranger rose and 
took my hand in his. 

148 


A Singer’s Story 

“ ‘ My dear young lady/ he said, in a low 
but excited voice ; * my dear young lady, 
would you like to become the first oratorio 
singer of this country ? 9 

“ I merely looked at him. 

“ ‘ Certainly, certainly/ said the old 
gentleman, ‘ of course she would ! ’ 

“ ‘ Will you work hard for four years? ’ 
the stranger went on. 

“ Still I was too dazed to answer. 

“ ‘ Of course she will/ said the old gen- 
tleman again. 

“ ‘ Then come to me in New York as 
soon as possible/ said the stranger, 
‘ and ’ 

“ But I could bear no more. I was 
trembling from head to foot, and the room 
spun ’round as I tried to take it all in. 
Who was he? What would I do in New 
York? Could I ever make so much noise 
again ? 

“ ‘ You are ill, child ! ’ said the stranger. 
* Sit down ! ’ and he led me to a deep chair. 
I sank into it, and collected myself enough 
to be taken home. Once there, I went di- 
rectly to sleep, to my own amazement, and 
149 


A Singer’s Story 

the last thing I heard was my aunt’s sur- 
prised nervous voice as she welcomed the 
strangers apologetically, and thanked them 
for finding me. 

“ Well, that is all. It seemed that I was 
a singer. It seemed that I had an abso- 
lutely fresh untried voice, that my hum- 
ming had been the best of practice, and my 
reading better. I had no old tricks to un- 
learn, and no strains nor faults to get over. 
The best teacher in the country to train 
me and good old Mr. Edwards to defray 
all expenses, as he insisted upon doing, and 
to make all plain to Uncle Ezra, who was 
hard to reconcile — was I not fortunate? 

“ And since then, it has all been so 
happy and successful: I have not deserved 
it ! Hard work, and plenty of it, oh, yes ! 
And journeyings here and there, not always 
as I have wished. But to give such pleas- 
ure by merely pleasing myself! To meet 
so many people when I had always been 
alone ! Best of all, to put Uncle Ezra and 
Aunt Susan in a better climate, and make 
their last days comfortable ! 

“ So I wanted to come here again and 

150 


A Singer’s Story 

walk about the place. But the grounds 
are all changed, and the house, too. I 
suppose when dear old Mr. Edwards died, 
the property all changed hands. I owe 
him so much ! ” 

The Singer sighed a little, and the story 
was over. Marion had dropped the reins, 
and old Peter had turned homeward of his 
own hungry will. Marion looked up in the 
Singer’s face, with all the dreams of suc- 
cess and fame and work and travel softened 
in her gray eyes by tears for the lonely 
little girl she had grown to love from the 
hearing of the story. 

“ It was a beautiful story,” she said, put- 
ting her sunburned hand on the Singer’s 
white one, “ and you were beautiful to tell 
it to me. I shall never forget it.” 














I 

























































































A Fair Exchange 



A Fair Exchange 


“ CATHER!” 

I “ Well? ” 

“ You’re not going down for Harriet in 
that old wagon ? ” 

“ What’s the matter with it ? Why not ? 
I thought I’d bring up some flour and some 
ice from the store,” said Mr. Hoyt easily, 
turning to his pretty scowling daughter in 
the doorway. 

She stared for a moment at his kindly 
sunburned face, and then shrugged her 
shoulders slightly. 

“ Oh, very well,” she muttered angrily, 
“ very well ! I thought since we had a 
buckboard, new this spring ” 

“ But I couldn’t get the ice into that, 
Sadie, and you wanted the ice,” he ex- 
plained, with a glance of pride meanwhile 
at the sleek handsome team pawing before 
the neat strong wagon shining from its 
155 


A Fair Exchange 

weekly washing. Farmer Hoyt loved his 
horses, and they were good ones, too. “ I 
don’t believe a city girl will object to these 
fellows,” he said, “ and the trunks, you 
know, they’ll take up room.” 

He whipped up and left her scowling in 
the doorway. 

“ It’s no use,” she said, hopelessly, 
“ she’ll see from the start what country 
folks we are ! ” 

“ Why shouldn’t she, then ? ” called her 
mother from the kitchen. 

“ If you think for a moment, Sadie, that 
we can change all our ways for a girl of 
eighteen, and try to pretend that we’re city 
people with six servants and a butler ” 

But Sadie was on the piazza, unusually 
broad and pleasant for a farm-house, and 
was already deep in a novel. Mrs. Hoyt 
shook her head doubtfully. 

“ I hope Harriet won’t put any more 
finicky notions into her — she’s got too many 
now,” she thought. “ I wish we could 
afford a good school for her. Perhaps if 
Tom can sell the East Lot she could have a 
year or two.” 

156 


A Fair Exchange 


Tom was cheerfully humming in the 
green wagon, and the long-tailed chestnuts 
were racing gayly along the wood-road. 
He loved it, every bend of it, every glint 
of dappled sky through the branches. He 
never ceased to bless the day when nervous 
prostration drove him from the bustling 
heated city to live in the only place he could 
— the country. He brought his pale little 
boys and his sickly baby girl and began 
to make a new life for them all on the neat 
little farm he had put all his earnings into. 
And he had never had an unhappy day 
there. His father’s blood was farming 
blood, and he carried on the old Vermont 
stock. He never envied William, who had 
grown from an office-boy to a mighty 
banker; he only wished sometimes that 
Sadie could love the country better, or have 
the advantages of her Cousin Harriet, since 
she could not. 

He pulled up at the little covered plat- 
form that was the only railway station, and 
looked about him. 

“ A lot of trunks,” Sadie had warned 
him, “ and perhaps a maid. Aunt Hatty 
157 


A Fair Exchange 

had a maid when they came up, so long 
ago, you know.” 

And Sadie had worried so much about 
her own clothes and drawn such highly 
colored sketches of her cousin’s probable 
wardrobe that her father half expected to 
find some gorgeous ball-costume waiting 
him and the chestnuts on the platform. 

But there were only a trunk and an alli- 
gator-skin bag there, and he turned the 
horses and sat comfortably to wait for the 
train. On the other side of the road were 
the “ store ” and the ice-barn ; farther along 
the little church, and then a straggly row 
of houses. Then the great green fields 
and the long scented wood-road. He got 
down from the high seat and strolled over 
to the store. The clerk and his slouching, 
angular employer were both occupied in 
serving one customer. 

“ Well, you see, Miss, you’ll just hev to 
wait half an hour and then the delivery 
wagon’ll be back, and Henry’ll take you 
up. Job Hart’s horse is bein’ shod and 
Job’s tender of him anyhow, and William 
Jackson’s hayin’, and he’s taken all the 
158 


A Fair Exchange 

other horses — how do, Mr. Hoyt, here’s 
someone for you, now ! ” 

A tall slender girl turned about and 
came quickly toward him. 

“Is it Uncle Tom?” she said. Mr. 
Hoyt stared at her. If any girl could ex- 
actly and minutely resemble his brother 
William, and yet make an exceedingly 
nice-looking womanly girl, this girl had 
done it. 

He held out his arms. 

“ You’re William’s daughter, and no 
mistake ! ” he said, and kissed her warmly. 
Then he held her off at arm’s length, and 
looked her over. 

Dark and slim, with a low coil of brown 
hair under her walking-hat, a stiff white 
collar under her firm little chin, a wood- 
brown jacket and skirt and trim alligator 
belt, and loose dogskin gloves swinging in 
her slim hand with the little emerald band 
on one finger, she was a pretty little trav- 
eller — a veritable nut-brown maid. The 
cuffs and collar of the crisp shirt-waist be- 
neath the jacket added to the boyish look 
of William that gleamed in her brown eyes. 
159 


A Fair Exchange 

“ I’m so glad to be here ! ” she said, de- 
lightedly. “ I’m going to have the nicest 
time, meeting you all and getting ac- 
quainted! I’ve any amount of messages 
from Papa,” and they left the store. 

Mr. Hoyt felt strangely pleased. He 
realized that he had dreaded this visitor not 
a little till now. She caught sight of the 
horses fretting at the delay and pawing the 
ground nervously. 

“Are those ours? Oh, Uncle Tom, 
what beauties! Aren’t they splendid? 
May I drive them? I can drive a little. 
There, there! stand still, you handsome 
things ! ” and she grasped the bits and 
soothed them while the trunk was lifted 
in. 

Uncle Tom’s sense of relief melted into 
downright pleasure. 

“ Yes, they’re very decent beasts,” he 
said, with pride. “ I’m proud of them my- 
self. I wished Sadie liked them as well as 
you do,” he added, as she administered a 
final pat to each glossy neck and climbed 
up beside him. 

“ Doesn’t she care for horses ? ” asked 
160 


A Fair Exchange 

the girl, and before he could warn her, she 
had gathered up the reins and tightened 
them. The chestnuts reared and dashed 
off, but before his hand could clutch the 
reins, she had pulled them in and was man- 
aging them with the skill of a veteran 
driver. Her uncle’s eyes lighted up. 

Well done ! ” he said, approvingly. 
“ Where do those hands get the strength?” 
For they were little and slim and white as 
could be, but wiry, he saw at a second 
glance, and powerful. 

“ I have a pony at home,” she said, “ but 
I can only drive in the park, and not fast 
there. At Shelton, where we go in the 
summer, I drive the pair almost every day. 
Are there dogs at the farm ? ” 

“ Lady has four collie pups,” he said ; 
“ do you like dogs, too ? ” 

“ Love them ! ” she beamed back at him. 
“ I can’t have one in the city, but I can 
have one of my own up here, can’t I ? ” 

“ Two, if you like,” he answered, with a 
laugh. He was delighted with William’s 
girl already. 

As they drove through the wood-road, 
161 


A Fair Exchange 

every mile of which found her more im- 
pressed with its beauty, he told her a little 
of how the farm had grown from the small 
place she had seen ten years ago. “ And 
we’ve all grown farmers, too, you know,” 
he warned her, with a smile. “ I’m afraid 
the boys haven’t the best of manners, my 
dear. And we’ve all got a little rusty 
— not but what I’ve done the best I could 
for them. We’ve got more books than 
most farmers, and there’s a fine academy 
in the next town, Doverly, and the chil- 
dren have had plenty of schooling. We 
get into Doverly for a lecture and a 
concert now and then, and what with 
the scholarship at Yale your father got 
for Walter and the place he’s promised 
William, Jr., I’m not afraid for the boys. 
Sadie, now ” 

He paused, and the girl, with William’s 
capable air, pulled the chestnuts around 
the corner. 

“ Sadie ? ” she repeated, “ how is Sadie ? 
Is she as pretty as ever? ” 

He smiled in a puzzled way. “ Oh, 
yes,” he answered, “ she’s pretty, I guess. 

162 


A Fair Exchange 

She’ll be surprised to see you,” he added, 
with a twinkle in his eye. And no more 
than that would he say. 

They drew up with a flourish before a 
rambling well-kept lawn, and a shingled 
white house setting well back from it. 
Comfortable barns stretched behind, and a 
level croquet-ground, with four fat puppies 
scrambling after the balls, gave it a pleas- 
ant air. A colored hammock flapped in 
the steady breeze, and the neat paths 
around the house were beautifully grav- 
elled. Harriet’s smile was admiring as 
well as welcoming. 

“ Isn’t it nice ! Isn’t it pretty ! ” she 
said, turning to see the lovely green hills 
roll off before her and the silver Connecti- 
cut gleam among the trees far away. 

“ We think it’s pretty nice,” returned 
Uncle Tom. “ Here, Mother ! Here’s 
Harriet!” 

Out came Aunt Mary, placid and com- 
fortable and unchanged, Harriet thought. 
Behind her two tall handsome boys, a little 
awkward, a little defiant at the prospect of 
this metropolitan cousin, but with a cer- 
163 


A Fair Exchange 

tain old-fashioned courtesy in their warm 
hand-shakes. 

“ I’m so glad to come ! I — oh ! see the 
puppies! The darlings! I am to have 
one, Walter. Uncle Tom says I am!” 

The ice was broken. Instantly four 
puppies were swarming in her lap, and two 
admiring boys were disputing over the best 
one for her. The praises of her fine driv- 
ing completed her conquest, and she was 
booked for a run with the buckboard that 
night. They led her in, and she smiled 
with pleasure at the comfortable homely 
sitting-room. It was not the common 
farmer’s parlor — far from it. On the 
stained floor a delicious rug of rag carpet, 
dull and soft, was stretched; stained pine 
cases held a goodly array of well-worn 
books ; a heavy mahogany dining-table 
had been turned into a writing-desk and 
sewing-stand and book-shelf combined, 
and comfortable chairs, with an old enor- 
mous settle which faced the large hearth, 
completed the furnishing. There were 
none of the cheap knick-knacks and photo- 
graphs, tidies and chromos, that during 
164 


A Fair Exchange 


the last generation crept in to spoil the 
old-time living-room. The few pictures 
were as good as those that hung on the 
walls at Harriet's home, for her mother had 
selected both. And she could catch the 
glimmer of a white cloth and shining 
glasses from the dining-room that showed, 
if nothing else had told her of it, the simple 
good taste that managed her aunt’s house. 
Up the broad low stairs that led to the 
bed-rooms she walked, vaguely conscious 
of a peaceful ease, a quiet living, that the 
bustling avenue house lacked. She re- 
membered that Uncle Tom had been quite 
a poetic scholarly fellow, and she caught 
the effect of his taste in the plain dark col- 
orings of the inside of the house and the 
rich, riot of old-fashioned flowers and well- 
placed trees outside. 

Her own room, with its rag rugs, snowy 
bed, quaint old green wooden furniture, 
and the old willow toilet-set that her quick 
eye told her was very valuable — it had 
been Grandmother Hoyt’s — delighted her. 
The soft fragrance of lavender and mig- 
nonette, the latter in a dear old yellow 

165 


A Fair Exchange 

bowl on the bureau ; the few engravings of 
country scenes — “ The Wayside Brook/’ 
" The Old Well,” “The Stepping-Stones ” ; 
the soft country air stirring the curtains; 
the puppies yelping below, the jingle of 
cow-bells as the slow sleek creatures came 
home to be milked, all filled her breast with 
a great comfort. 

“ I have come home ! ” she said, with a 
pretty little gesture of friendliness to Aunt 
Mary, who with old-fashioned hospitality, 
had come up with her to help her unpack. 
The kindly woman’s eyes filled with tears. 
“ Dear child,” she said, kissing her again, 
“ only make it home, and we shall be very 
pleased and happy. Your Uncle Tom is 
brighter than he’s been for a month, to see 
you. He’s been feeling a little low for a 

while about Sadie ” 

“ Why, where is Sadie ? ” cried the girl. 
A girl cousin of her own age, almost, was 
the only thing needed to complete this 
dear, wholesome, pleasant household. 
“ Why didn’t I see her? ” 

“ She said perhaps you’d rather wait till 
you’d rested awhile and got unpacked,” 
1 66 


A Fair Exchange 

said Aunt Mary doubtfully. “ I don’t 
know as I ought to have come up myself, 

but it seemed as if ’twas just as well ” 

“ It was the only thing to do ! It was 
sweet of you ! ” cried the girl, with a vague 
resentment at this cousin who could not 
welcome her simply, like the others. She 
began unpacking quickly, shaking out and 
putting away, talking all the while. An 
armful of magazines came out for Uncle 
Tom — Century, Scribner, Harper, Outlook, 
Atlantic — all the month’s publications. A 
box of Huyler’s for Aunt Mary, whose 
sweet tooth was a family joke ; a pocket- 
camera for William, from William, Sr., the 
label explained ; a fountain-pen for Walter, 
“ to take his examinations with,” and last 
of all, a square flat package, tied in white 
tissue with narrow violet ribbon. 

“ This is for Sadie,” with a little blush, 
“ I made them myself.” 

Aunt Mary went to the hall, a chocolate 
peppermint in each hand. 

“ Sadie ! Sadie ! come and get your 
present ! ” she called. Walter was scrib- 
bling happily with the pen, and William 
167 


A Fair Exchange 

had taken two ecstatic pictures of Lady and 
the pups before a gentle knock at the half- 
open door called Harriet from the willow 
toilet-set. “ Come in ! ” she answered, 
splashing vigorously, “ Aunt Mary ? ” 

“ Excuse me, no, it’s I, Sadie — I’ll go 
if — if you’re engaged,” a high sweet voice 
drawled at her. Harriet, buried in a towel, 
looked through dripping eyes at her 
cousin, with a sinking heart. She saw a 
girl, tall and slender like herself, but fair, 
with deep violet eyes and almost flaxen 
hair. Her soft pink cheeks were dusted 
with powder, Harriet saw in an amazed 
glance; her pretty yellow hair was curled 
and frizzled to stand out an inch beyond 
either ear, and piled in a somewhat mussy 
fashion on top of her head ; one wrist bore 
a dozen slender silver bangles, the other 
two heavy chain bracelets. A large topaz 
ring on one hand and a garnet and an 
amethyst on the other, with an old-fash- 
ioned gold watch suspended from a cheap 
filigree chatelaine, completed her jewelry. 
She wore a blue lawn sprinkled with heavy 
white scrolls, ruffled with white cotton-lace, 
1 68 


A Fair Exchange 


and finished with a broad lace collar and 
blue ribbon. She seemed utterly out of 
place in this plain, quiet, out-of-doors 
family, and Harriet felt in a moment the 
meaning of the doubtful expression on 
Aunt Mary’s face, the uncertain smile on 
Uncle Tom’s, when they mentioned Sadie. 
Nevertheless, the girl was strikingly pretty 
and graceful, she saw, and her cheap tight 
dress had a certain effect of its own — one 
knew perfectly well what she had intended 
it should be like. 

As Harriet came forward to kiss her she 
raised one arm to the level of her shoulder 
and extended her hand. “ I’m awfully 
glad to see you,” she drawled, with a per- 
functory little smile. “ Did you have a 
hard journey ? ” 

Harriet could not restrain a smile. “ Not 
at all, thank you,” she replied politely, tak- 
ing the hand, “ it is a lovely country. I 
enjoyed every minute of it. I am sorry 
not to be dressed,” she added, as Sadie 
turned to go, apparently, “ but won’t you 
stay? I’ll be ready in a minute,” turning 
to the closet. 


169 


A Fair Exchange 

With courtesy satisfied Sadie was glad 
to stay, and looked longingly at the closet. 
“ May I see your clothes ? Are you all un- 
packed ? ” she asked, eagerly. 

Harriet looked rather surprised. “Why, 
certainly,” she said, “ only there’s not 
much to see. I’ve only one trunk.” 

“Oh!” cried her cousin, “only one?” 
and before Harriet could answer her she 
was in the closet. As their owner had said, 
the clothes were not much to see. There 
were half a dozen shirt-waists, a dark short 
skirt of some tailor stuff; a pretty pale 
organdie with mauve ribbons, and two 
light ginghams — that was all. Sadie fin- 
gered them a little, and turned away with 
a disagreeable little smile. So Uncle Will- 
iam was miserly, then! She had more of 
a closetful than that herself. She did not 
know that both the stiff short skirt and 
the brown silk-lined suit were tailor-made ; 
that the mauve organdie was worn over an 
exquisite silk slip; that one gingham had 
bits of real Cluny lace at throat and wrist, 
and that the tiny bands of insertion in the 
other were extremely lovely. She thought 
170 


A Fair Exchange 

hastily that Cousin Harriet found any- 
thing good enough for the country, while 
as a matter of fact her cousin had brought, 
simply enough, of the best she had. 

“ Haven’t you a white duck ? ” asked 
Sadie quickly. Harriet wondered at her 
interest, but replied politely, trying not to 
show her disappointment at her cousin’s 
air: 

“ I have three suits, but Mamma thought 
they would be unsuitable to bring. They 
must be washed so often, you know, and 
there might not be people who would know 
how ” 

“ Is this for me?” Sadie fell upon the 
package, and tore off the paper and rib- 
bon. Three long scented pads, silk-cov- 
ered and ribbon-bound, fell out. The silk 
was sprayed with violets, and violet ribbon 
bound it. A dainty odor of violet and 
orris filled the room. 

“ I made them — they’re for your bureau- 
drawer, you know; they keep the things 
sweet,” said Harriet timidly, for she was 
just a bit afraid of her cousin. 

“ Thank you, it was very kind,” returned 
171 


A Fair Exchange 

the other shortly, and left the room, taking 
the sachets with her. Harriet was an- 
noyed, but saved from real unhappiness 
by the sound of bureau-drawers rapidly 
opened and shut. Sadie was hastening to 
put her gifts to their use, forgetting for the 
moment her rather exaggerated courtesy. 

The bell rang for the substantial country 
supper, and as Farmer Hoyt looked up 
from the old-fashioned grace that he had 
learned from his father, he thought that 
the merry hungry girl, looking over her 
gingerbread and milk with laughing eyes 
to tease Walter about his examinations and 
engage William to take her about the farm 
the next day, seemed far more in place 
than the daughter of the house, whom farm 
life plainly bored, and whose frizzled hair 
and jewelled hands contrasted so greatly 
with the smooth coils and bare fingers of 
the city cousin. 

Harriet won fresh laurels from the buck- 
board drive, and went early to bed, sleepy 
already from the fresh country air. As she 
braided her brown hair, looking out at the 
dim black trees and listening to the peep- 
172 


A Fair Exchange 

ers and bull-frogs in the pond near, catch- 
ing the sweet warm odor of the fields and 
flowers at every breath of wind, the girl 
realized that she had never liked any place 
so much. The spruce neatness of their 
summer cottage at the shore seemed tire- 
some to her in its likeness to the city home ; 
the handsomely dressed women, the shine 
of the ocean, the babble of the crowds of 
children, the dress parade along the board- 
walk, the dances and concerts at night, 
even, of which she had had little experi- 
ence, were not worth this lovely dreamy 
quiet. The blood of her grandfather — 
country blood — woke in her veins and 
called her to stay here with these kindly 
quiet people, and learn the deep green 
places and the curving little streams and 
the open pastures and the brilliant Sep- 
tember woods. The grave pleasant eyes 
of her uncle; the motherly busy smile of 
her aunt; her tall young cousins’ interest 
and admiration, all drew her to them. She 
saw a stretch of lonely thoughtful days ; of 
long conversation with Uncle Tom, whom 
she understood better than she had ever 
173 


A Fair Exchange 

understood her business-like father ; of 
housewifely duties, which had always at- 
tracted her, with Aunt Mary; of out-door 
life and sports with William and Walter. 

And then she saw the one discordant 
note in all this — pretty unsatisfied Sadie. 
She was a bright girl, almost clever, and 
how she loved the breath and glitter and 
business, the airs and graces, the fads and 
fashions, of the life she knew of but could 
not live! She was not vulgar at heart, 
only from lack of the very training that 
these simple souls could not give her. A 
year of city schools and city manners and 
customs, would show this hungry unsatis- 
fied little imitator that there was work to 
be done and lessons to be learned, and a 
sameness and regularity of its own in the 
existence she had evidently pictured to her- 
self all charming whims and luxurious 
leisure. 

A knock at the door and the girl herself 
entered, her pretty flaxen hair all loose on 
her shoulders, her eyes noting with delight 
her guest’s dainty ruffled night-gown. 

“ I want you to tell me all about it,” she 

174 


A Fair Exchange 

said coaxingly. “ I want to know what 
you do all day, and about the people you 
see and — and everything ! ” 

Harriet smiled. “ I don’t see very 
much. I’ve just left school, you know, 
and I had to study pretty hard; and the 
people — oh, they were my own friends and 
family friends — just like anybody,” she 
concluded lamely. 

As she saw the disappointment in Sadie’s 
face she added : u I’m not out in society, 
you know, Sadie. I don’t go to balls and 
such things, if you mean that. I was go- 
ing to begin next year — ” She paused as 
she noticed that she had said “ was.” Was 
her plan so settled, then ? she asked herself. 

“ Oh ! ” Sadie was frankly displeased. 
“ Why, I’m only seventeen — a year young- 
er than you — and I left school this year. 
Father didn’t like it, but I told him I’d read 
German with Walter, and that I was old 
enough. Don’t you go to any parties ? ” 
Harriet smiled at the almost childish 
manner. “ Why, yes, at Shelton we dance 
twice a week, and in the city there are lit- 
tle teas, and the matinee, and— and — oh! 
175 


A Fair Exchange 

Sadie, it's all the same thing! It's not half 
so nice as this ! ” 

Sadie frowned. “ It sounds lovely, even 
the little bit you say,” she murmured to 
herself. “ Do you give teas ? ” 

“ Just to the girls, of course, but I helped 
sometimes at Mamma’s when she wanted 
me to get used to talking to the people. I 
never knew what to say at first,” added 
Harriet reminiscently. 

Sadie’s eyes flashed. “ I should love 
that ! ” she cried. “ And I should love to 
talk to them all, too.” 

Harriet thought that her mother would 
have something to say as to the extent of 
Miss Sadie’s conversation, but did not 
reply. 

When her cousin had left her alone she 
thought very hard before she fell asleep, 
and sent a photograph and a letter to Shel- 
ton the next morning. 

In a few days Aunt Mary and Uncle Tom 
were meditating over a letter from that 
sea-side village. 

“ Since Harriet would really prefer to 
wait a year before taking up her social 
176 


A Fair Exchange 

duties, and since the air seems to agree with 
her so very well, I am very glad to have her 
in such good hands,” the letter concluded. 
“We cannot consent to no return, how- 
ever, and we shall be very pleased to bor- 
row Sarah for a year, particularly as I un- 
derstand from Harriet that she is very 
anxious to see something of city life and 
that you would like her to have a year in 
a good school. She can take Harriet’s 
place at Mrs. Lee’s and go with Ethel, who 
will try to make it pleasant for her, I am 
sure. I shall do for her just what I did 
for Harriet last year, and only hope Harriet 
can get her rosy cheeks under your care.” 

Harriet found them reading it, and 
slipped up behind them. 

“ If you’re sure you can bear me for a 
year,” she began, but their faces answered 
her. She was at home. 

For Sadie herself and her joy — but it 
needs another story for that. How Sadie 
found her new life is a tale by itself, and 
this is only the story of the city girl who 
found her grandfather’s life the life for her. 
The great green, breezy, woody country, 
177 


A Fair Exchange 


from which his son had long ago gone out, 
called his son’s daughter back to itself, and 
gave her a royal welcome. 

And with a vague feeling of all this, 
Harriet left the uncle and aunt in the pleas- 
ant living-room and ran happily out to 
Lady and her puppies. 

“ I didn’t know city girls could be so 
jolly,” said William, watching her with the 
dogs. 

“ She’s not a city girl any more — she 
lives here now ; she’s just a farmer, like the 
rest of us,” and Walter laughed at her. 
“ Aren’t you, Harriet ? ” 

She laughed back and pinched the pup- 
pies’ ears. 

“ Of course I am ! ” she said. 


178 











Her Father’s 





Her Father’s Daughter 



HE eleven o’clock gong struck, and 


1 into the main hall there surged a 
stream of girls. To the uninitiated they 
would have seemed bent upon one an- 
other’s downfall, for they pushed merci- 
lessly in opposite directions, shouldered 
and dived and wedged through the crowd 
with a skill worthy their brothers of foot- 
ball fame, tied themselves into inextricable 
knots before the bulletin-boards, and chat- 
tered incessantly, with occasional bursts of 
laughter, that could hardly have failed to 
interest and annoy the victims just folding 
their papers in the rooms beyond. 

In front of Room 3 the crowd was al- 
most quiet. They glared nervously at 
text-books, hastily ran over their notes, or 
recklessly sharpened their pencils, girl 
fashion, with scowls and compressed lips. 
Plainly, a written lesson. 


181 


Her Father’s Daughter 

“Where’s Betty? She’s surely coming? 
She simply can’t cut to-day ! ” Katherine 
Eager’s little frown deepened, and she 
peered down through the crowd. “ Oh, 
Betty’s coming; she’s practising in the 
Gym. She’s got a new curve, she thinks, 
and she’s teaching the team. Did you 
know that Mary Reed has sprained her 
ankle ? ” 

“Not really? Oh, girls, do you hear 
that? M. Reed’s sprained her ankle!” 
Sighs of relief that tried to express sym- 
pathy arose from the crowd in front of 
Room 3. “ It’s mean, but we can’t help 

being glad, Katherine, so don’t wither 
us ! It would have been awful for our 
team to lose the two best Centres, and 
the freshman team to keep perfect — you 
know it would! But they say our Subs 
are good. The door’s open: that Betty, 
if she cuts to-day, I’m afraid she’ll get into 
trouble ! ” 

They crowded in as the outgoing class 
crowded out. “Was it hard? Oh, Elsie, 
was it hard? Was it the Papacy? If it 
was the Power of the Crown I shall die ! 

182 


Her Father’s Daughter 

Was it more than one question ? Was it a 
paper? ” 

“ Don’t speak to me ! Don’t ask me 
anything — at least, anything you want to 
know! I flunked dead — dead! I’m con- 
ditioned, I know that. Oh, my poor 

parents! They little thought ” 

“ What nonsense ! Do be sensible, El- 
sie, and tell us ! Was it — oh, Betty ! 
Betty ! Here’s your seat ! Are you tired ? 
Poor Betty! Did she have to come to 
classes occasionally ? It was hard ! ” 

Betty Hubbard sank into a seat. “ Please 
lend me a pencil, somebody? Yes, the 
team do beautifully! No, thank you, I 
have one. I ? Oh, nothing, of course ! 
I know about the Crown , you know, but 
I left the Papacy till too late, and I was 
so sleepy! Perhaps I can get through, 
though.” 

She was five feet seven inches and a 
half, was Elizabeth Hubbard, and blond 
and beautiful to behold. Also she could 
jump a cord held to her shoulders’ height, 
she could climb ropes like a monkey, she 
could make a Welsh rabbit unequalled 

183 


Her Father’s Daughter 

in the college, and she had more friends 
than she could find time to visit. Her 
friends were wont to crush those envious 
ones, who pointed out that Miss Hub- 
bard’s recitations were not all that could 
be desired, by a little meaning smile, 
and a vague remark to the effect that one 
couldn’t find time for everything , and that 
so long as Betty’s friends were satis- 
fied. . . . 

Besides, Betty always “ got through ” — 
not gloriously, perhaps, not without oc- 
casional sighs from instructors and sugges- 
tions in Faculty meetings that although 
athletic triumphs were doubtless valuable, 
they hardly entered into a consideration of 
one’s fitness for a diploma; not without 
periodical repentances on Betty’s part and 
vows to cram no more, but to study regu- 
larly and properly, and show people that 
the captain of the sophomore basket-ball 
team could take a higher grade if she 
chose ! 

Yet there was so much to do! There 
were the boats and tennis and the walking 
club and the dances, and just now, her 
184 


Her Father's Daughter 

horse was in town and needed driving, 
oh, at least every day! And she studied 
when she had time, and her friends loved 
her, and the heads of departments looked 
at her, standing — blond and tall — in chapel, 
and said, “ What a remarkably handsome 
girl Miss Hubbard is ! ” And the in- 
structors, who bore with Betty’s doubtful 
German and unsteady History, replied, 
“ Yes, if she would only work a little ! ” 
One of the instructors looked at her now, 
as she sat flushed and just a little tired from 
coaching her team ; her wavy yellow hair 
running into little crisp curls at her tem- 
ples, her strong brown hands resting in 
her lap, the very picture of contented ease. 
Next to her, her friend Katherine Eager 
held her sharpened pencils and Betty’s hat- 
pins in her hand, and all her lessons well 
arranged in her shapely head. “ One good 
paper, at least ! ” thought the instructor. 
On Betty’s other side little nervous Anna 
Wilkinson studied at her neat back-hand 
notes. The instructor wondered if she 
would ever stop studying, and if she really 
was as nervous as she seemed. She must 

185 


Her Father’s Daughter 

know that her work was practically fault- 
less ! And that big Elizabeth Hubbard 
was as calm as a summer afternoon, and 
probably knew nothing of the subject. Ah, 
well — which was happier? 

“ I will call the roll if you will come to 
order,” said Miss Lennox. “ Miss Adams, 
Miss Archer, Miss Atwood ” 

And when the roll was finished the in- 
structor took a folded paper from the pile 
before her and creased it open. “ I want 
a short paper to-day,” she said, “ with as 
little padding as possible. I simply wish 
to get at your knowledge of the facts. I 
don’t object to your putting it in outline 
form, if you choose, and it is on no ac- 
count to be more than three pages in 
length. Take your time, but condense! 
The subject is the rise and decline of the 
Papacy. I shall ask for the papers at five 
minutes of twelve.” 

She bent her head over the paper in her 
hand, and the room became very still. A 
few plaintive sighs came from the back of 
the room : a few sinners were meeting a 
just fate. Katherine Eager put her chin 
1 86 


Her Father’s Daughter 

into her hand and stared at the blackboard ; 
she always thought for a full half of the 
time, and then wrote for the other half with- 
out a second’s pause. Anna Wilkinson 
gasped and flushed and whispered, “ Oh, 
dear ! ” and looked altogether the veriest 
martyr in the room. One would not have 
expected from her appearance the series of 
marks that every class-book showed op- 
posite her name. Betty Hubbard sat quite 
motionless, her hands in her lap. It took 
very little time for her to assure herself that 
she knew absolutely nothing of the Papacy. 
To do her justice, it was the one subject of 
which she was utterly ignorant. An ordi- 
nary lesson, in three or four parts, she 
could have attacked with some hope of suc- 
cess. The Power of the Crown she had 
studied hard last night — if it had only been 
that ! Ah, well ! Betty was philosophical, 
if nothing else. Such things would hap- 
pen ; she really deserved it ; she had 
chanced it once too often, that was all. 
She would work hard for the next one, and 
simply tell the truth — that she wasn’t 
prepared. 


Her Father's Daughter 

Suddenly a thought sent her heart beat- 
ing swiftly, and she sat up staring at Miss 
Lennox. Suppose — suppose — what if it 

should be that! In a flash there raced 
through her mind the new rule in regard 
to the basket-ball teams : that no girl could 
play on the regular or sub teams whose 
standing was below a certain average. 
What was her average ? She remem- 
bered the horror of her own team last 
year, when two home-men were ruthlessly 
taken off at a week’s notice, and only her 
own marvellous playing, sure eye, and in- 
credible jumps for the great ball won the 
freshman team the game — the first game 
the freshmen had won from the sopho- 
mores since the great annual contest was 
instituted. It seemed to her she should 
never forget the glory of that night: the 
team that carried her triumphantly about 
the gymnasium on its loyal shoulders ; the 
shouting applauding gallery; the sopho- 
more captain, white and tired, with a sus- 
picion of tears in her eyes, who shook her 
hand bravely — “ Miss Hubbard, you are a 
wonder ! I never saw such playing ! ” — 
1 88 


Her Father’s Daughter 

and then went back to her downcast team, 
leaving Betty red with pleasure, and a little 
hysterical sorrow for the sophomores ; the 
supper down-town, with the class colors 
and the toasts, “ Here's to Betty Hubbard , 
drink her down!" and the cheers; the 
strangers who shook hands and said, “ The 
class is so proud of you, Miss Hubbard ! ” 
Ah, that was sweet! That made one 
love the college! And they could do it 
this year, too. Two girls laid up, to be 
sure, but Betty was a host in herself. She 
knew every inch of the floor, she knew the 

capacities of every girl, she knew 

“ Why don’t you begin, Betty ? What’s 
the matter? For heaven’s sake, write 
something! ” whispered Katherine. “ It’s 
half past, already! It’s only an outline, 
you know.” 

Betty stared at her, half dazed. “ I 
can’t! I don’t know a thing. I learned 
about the State — I’m going home ! ” and 
she half rose. The instructor looked at- 
her, laying down the last leaf of the third 
paper. “ Do you wish more paper, Miss 
Hubbard?” she said. Betty giggled 
189 


Her Father’s Daughter 

hysterically. “ No, thank you,” she an- 
swered, and sank back. 

Katherine frowned. “ Oh, Betty, why 
didn’t you study ! Do think up some- 
thing ! ” Her mind was clearly arranged, 
now, and her pencil flew. Betty glanced 
at her paper. “ In the eleventh century 
the Church — ” Ah, yes, she remembered 
that, too. 

Clearly as ever she saw in her life, Betty 
Hubbard saw that this paper must be writ- 
ten. Her record she did not know, but she 
knew that it could not bear a zero for a 
written lesson. She would go off the team 
immediately. She, of all people, would 
make the best example for girls who would 
not study. There was no other captain. 
The freshman team was strong and well 
coached. She knew something of every 
other probable topic but just this one — it 
was too cruel. She would study it later, 
she would learn it thoroughly, but now 

And looking at Kate’s paper, she delib- 
erately copied down the headings of the 
paragraphs and the chief dates. She 
omitted all details ; she took just enough 
190 


Her Father’s Daughter 

to show a bare knowledge of the facts, and 
every date, as she copied, appeared familiar 
to her. One evening’s cramming would 
have given her all this. It was absurd to 
lose everything for the work of one even- 
ing! Her cheeks were hot, her eye glow- 
ing. “ What a beauty she is ! ” thought 
the instructor. And, “ Will you close your 
papers now ? ” she said. 

They laid them on the desk and 
streamed out. “ I’m glad you bluffed it 
out — for I suppose you did, Betty ? ” said 
Kate. 

“ Yes — no — I don’t know!” and Betty 
was gone. 

Well, it was done. Right in front of her 
the Dustan girls had amiably compared 
notes, and Ethel White had cribbed pages 
from her room-mate. It was no such sin. 
She knew it all, anyway, once ; and for the 
sake of the team, she owed it to them. Oh, 
why had she gone into that class at all ! 

“ Betty ! Elizabeth ! Miss Hubbard ! I 
want to speak to you ! ” 

She turned, and met the senior president. 
“ I want you to meet my mother ; she asked 
191 


Her Father’s Daughter 

to meet you ; she knew your father. 
Mother, this is Miss Hubbard, our sopho- 
more basket-ball captain ! ” 

Betty said something polite — she could 
not have told what — to the sweet-voiced 
woman before her. What was she saying? 
“ I am glad to meet John Hubbard’s little 
girl — his big girl, I should say! I knew 
your father well, my dear. He was one of 
the best men I ever knew. My husband 
often said that John Hubbard had the fin- 
est sense of honor of any man of his ac- 
quaintance. And how is your mother?” 

It was only a few minutes, and Betty was 
on the campus. Her head ached, and she 
could not think. But in her ears rang, and 
would not cease, one sentence — “ the fin- 
est sense of honor — the finest sense of 
honor!” 

She turned toward the gymnasium. 
“ I’ll get the score-cards,” she said, half 
aloud, and then added, “ the finest sense 
of honor ! ” She stood still. “ What do I 
care ? ” she said. “ Why do I notice her? ” 
And in her heart there echoed, “ I am glad 
to meet John Hubbard’s little girl.” 

192 


Her Father’s Daughter 

Elizabeth Stanley Hubbard lifted her 
head and took a deep breath. “ Oh, all 
right ! all right ! ” she whispered, as if to 
someone behind her. “ I’m going to ! 
Are you satisfied ? ” 

She hardly knew how she got to the 
farther dormitory and found herself knock- 
ing at a door. “ Come in ! ” said someone, 
and Betty walked up to Miss Lennox. 
The senior on the couch half rose. “ Do I 
go ? ” she asked, easily. Who was she ? 
Oh, yes! Betty remembered Miss Len- 
nox’s friend. “ No,” she said, “ don’t go 
on my account. I simply came to ask you 
for my history paper, Miss Lennox — it’s 
all cribbed ! ” 

Miss Lennox flushed, and looked curi- 
ously at this big handsome creature who 
stood so straight and brought all out-of- 
doors into the room with her. The senior 
forgot her air of polite inattention, and 
stared. 

Then the instructor showed her tact. 
Quietly she sorted her papers and handed 
one to Betty. “ Here it is,” she said, and, 
as Betty slowly tore it through, “ my dear 
girl, why did you do it ? ” 

193 


Her Father’s Daughter 

Betty looked out of the window. 
“ Really, I don’t know,” she said. “ It was 
certainly very silly.” She turned to go. 

“ Miss Hubbard, I can’t — you know, I 
can’t give you any mark for this paper,” 
said Miss Lennox. Betty drew her head 
up, and her brows met. “ Certainly not, 
Miss Lennox,” she said, coldly, and left the 
room. 

The instructor in history stared at the 
senior. “ What do you call that ? ” she 
asked. The senior sank back on the 
couch. “ I call it pluck,” she said. 

The captain of the Sophomor.e basket- 
ball team went home, and put on her door 
a sign to the effect that she was asleep and 
not to be disturbed. But, just before sup- 
per, Miss Katherine Eager, with the mer- 
est pretence at a knock, entered, scolding 
vigorously. 

“ Betty Hubbard, why will you be so 
foolish ! Betty, I say ! Oh, were you 
asleep? What’s the matter? I was aw- 
fully worried about your history to-day. I 
knew you were bluffing. The marks are 
in, and do you know, I was going in the 
194 


Her Father’s Daughter 

office to get my excuse for Sunday, and I 
heard Miss Roberts say your name. I 
went right in, and she was saying : ‘ But 
she’s just gotten through. One mark less, 
and we could take her off the team; her 
history is very poor. It’s a pity — she could 
do more ! ’ 

“ And then they heard me, and stopped. 
But it was a close shave, Betty, dear, and 
you could study harder! You know you 
ought to, if only for the team’s sake. Why, 
Betty, what are you crying about? Oh, 
Betty! we know you could study if you 
wanted; we don’t care about that, Betty! 
No, we oughtn’t to, either. No, you 
aren't a beast ! Nor a coward ! ” 

There was a pause, and Katherine patted 
the couch-pillow encouragingly. 

“ No, you’re just the dearest girl in the 
world, Betty; but I hope you’ve learned 
your lesson, my dear ! ” 

Betty looked up from the pillows and 
reached out a hand that clutched uncon- 
sciously a crumpled score-card. “ Yes, 
I’ve learned my lesson ! ” she said. 


195 



A Country Cousin 





A Country Cousin 

A VERY pretty fair-haired girl stood 
in one corner of the great waiting- 
room of a large New York railroad station 
late one afternoon, and looked wonderingly 
about her. The bustle and rush of the 
place fascinated her; the hurrying porters, 
the loud-voiced heralds of departing trains, 
the streams of men, women and babies that 
flowed constantly by, the benches, always 
emptying themselves, but always full — it 
was a new scene to her, and she would have 
stood watching it indefinitely had not a 
hand touched her arm. 

“ I beg pardon, Miss, but was you ex- 
pecting — ” it was a man in livery. Before 
she had time to answer him, a young girl 
seized her hand. 

“ It’s Cousin Sarah, I know by the pho- 
199 


A Country Cousin 

tograph ! ” she cried. “ It’s all right, 
Michael. We thought you were lost, 
Cousin Sarah. Fm Ethel. How do you 
do?” 

“ I’m well, thank you ; how are you ? ” 

Not that she needed to ask. Ethel’s 
bronzed cheeks and firm muscular grasp 
would have done credit to a boy of her own 
sixteen years. As they threaded their way 
to the carriage, Sarah studied her curious- 
ly — she was very different from her cousin’s 
idea of a city girl. Her long straight hair, 
though it was fresh and glossy, was guilt- 
less of any attempt at curl or wave, and 
hung in a thick, evenly plaited tail below 
her waist. Between the tops of her low- 
heeled, broad-soled walking-shoes — low 
ties, though it was well through October — 
and the stitching of her heavy dark walk- 
ing-skirt her ankles were plainly to be seen, 
and the felt walking-hat had not even a 
quill or wing to boast of ; she might have 
been a little girl of twelve, as far as her 
dress was concerned, thought the visitor. 

What Ethel’s impressions were, she did 
not imply by so much as a glance. That 
200 


A Country Cousin 

she had rapidly formed them, no one less 
self-absorbed than her cousin could doubt. 
She saw a head of lovely flaxen hair curled 
out of all resemblance to its natural wavi- 
ness; soft pink cheeks, accentuated by a 
black dotted veil ; a graceful girlish figure, 
laced into a stiff wasp-waisted effect that 
made easy motions impossible ; pretty 
little feet, pinched into high-heeled, thin- 
soled shoes, with old-style pointed toes. 
Her violet eyes almost made one forget 
the big picture-hat, loaded with cheap 
feathers; her deep dimple distracted one 
from a consideration of her tightly fitted 
jacket, elaborately trimmed with imitation 
astrachan ; her lovely coloring blinded one 
to the soiled white gloves and worn-off, 
dusty train that dragged behind her. 

“ But Mamma will arrange all that ! ” 
thought Ethel comfortably, thankful that 
none of her school friends had seen this 
strangely dressed, self-sufficient cousin that 
had come to take Harriet's place. If she 
could have read the thoughts of the girl 
beside her, she would have hesitated be- 
tween amusement and irritation. For it 


201 


A Country Cousin 

must be admitted that her cousin thought 
her dowdy, under-dressed, and babyish- 
looking. At fourteen she had looked older 
than Ethel ; at sixteen she had brought her 
skirts down definitely and heaped her hair 
high; now, at seventeen, she considered 
herself a woman grown. 

As the coupe rolled through the darken- 
ing streets, her heart beat hard with excite- 
ment. Up to now she had hardly believed 
it all; it had seemed too good to be true. 
To live in a big city home, to command a 
coachman and a butler, to have one’s hair 
dressed by a maid, to eat late dinners with 
flowers and cut-glass and silver, surround- 
ed by men and women in brilliant evening 
dress, to drive in the Park, to 

“ You’ve not been in New York before, 
have you ? ” asked Ethel. 

Her cousin’s face flushed. Not sure of 
herself, and therefore suspicious, she 
found an utterly unintentional patronage 
in the simple question. 

“ Not — not often ! ” she answered, stiffly, 
and a silence fell between them. 

“ We’ve only been back a few days,” vol- 


202 


A Country Cousin 

unteered Ethel, presently; “we stay later 
every year. But I had to be back for 
school. You’re going with me, Mamma 
says.” 

“ I think perhaps so — if I like it,” re- 
turned her visitor, “ though I am really 
through school.” 

Ethel bit her lip. This was a very dis- 
agreeable girl, without doubt. “ If she 
liked it,” indeed. She little knew her 
Aunt Harriet, evidently. “ Not often ! ” 
Her mother had distinctly written that she 
had never been in New York since she was 
a little girl of eight or nine, when she had 
made them a short visit. And yet Harriet 
had said that she would enjoy it so with 
them and that they would like her! It 
seemed improbable to Ethel now. 

The carriage drew up to the curb, and 
Michael was off again for Papa. Ethel ran 
lightly up the stone steps and through the 
tiled vestibule. 

“ Mamma is upstairs, John ? ” she asked 
the solemn middle-aged man at the door 
of the rich dark hall, with its polished wood 
and soft shaded lights. 

, 203 


A Country Cousin 

“ Yes, Miss Ethel, in her dressing-room. 
She said you was to go directly up, Miss 
Ethel, with the young lady.” 

The young lady’s eyes sparkled. If old 
Ellen, who had persisted in calling her 
“ Sadie ” for seventeen years, could have 
heard the respectful tones of the man — and 
Ethel was only sixteen — how she would 
have opened her shrewd gray eyes ! 

To meet a real woman of the world in 
her boudoir! To discuss her life, her aims, 
her triumphs with her, to show her that one 
understood, that one had read, even if one 
“ had not been in New York before ! ” 
Would they dine in evening dress ? She 
understood that they did, and to her moth- 
er’s horror had insisted on constructing 
one from an old silk dress of grandmoth- 
er’s, from which her slight pure shoulders 
rose with what was to the family a star- 
tling effect. Would she wear gloves 

Ethel was knocking at a door. “ Come 
in ! ” called a low rich voice, and Sarah 
saw for the first time in her life a black- 
dressed, white-aproned maid brushing her 
mistress’s shining hair. 

204 


A Country Cousin 

“ This is Sarah — how do you do, my 
dear? ” 

The lady was clad in a rich wadded robe 
of bright-colored silk. It was folded loose- 
ly about her and displayed delicious laces 
and tiny ribbons underneath. A low wide 
dresser was spread with silver and crystal 
toilet articles ; over a chair a beautiful shim- 
mering gown was thrown; a sweet fresh 
perfume filled the room. 

How young she looked! Surely she 
could not be within a year of her sister- 
in-law’s age ! How soft and white and 
pink-nailed her hands were ! The girl felt 
suddenly dusty and awkward; her dress 
seemed scant ; her shoes ill-fitting. 

“And you got here safely? Yes, and 
the home people are all well? And about 
your work. I shall not have much time to 
see you for a day or two; but my sister, 
Miss Meade, will show you about anything 
you may want to know. I hope you will be 
very contented and happy with us, Sarah. 
Ethel will do all she can, I know. As I 
told your father, I shall make no difference 
between you. I am a very busy woman — 
205 


A Country Cousin 

que faites vons, Felice? pas si vite — but I try 
not to neglect my babies utterly — riest- 
ce pas petite? ” and she pinched Ethel’s ear. 

“ Mais oui , chere maman,” and Ethel be- 
gan to explain something in French, evi- 
dently very funny, for both her mother and 
Felice laughed with much amusement. 

Their cousin felt decidedly awkward and 
out of touch with the scene. She had im- 
agined herself taking social precedence 
over this school-girl, and here the school- 
girl had slipped into a tongue unknown to 
her and was apparently of greater interest 
to this wonderful bare-armed woman than 
she. 

Suddenly Aunt Harriet caught her eye. 
Something in the girl’s face struck her and 
she interrupted Ethel’s story unceremoni- 
ously. 

“You speak French, my dear? I re- 
member Harriet’s writing ” 

“ No, I don’t understand it at all,” Sadie 
replied, stiffly. 

Aunt Harriet looked annoyed, regretful, 
and apologetic at once. 

“ I beg your pardon, dear, a thousand 
206 


A Country Cousin 

times ! How very thoughtless of me ! But 
'I had a firm notion you were a very good 
French scholar — Harriet wrote that you 
were in advance of her, surely ! Ethel and 
I should have been more ” 

“ It was German Harriet meant. I don’t 
know French,” Sadie explained, mollified 
by the apology and the compliment to her 
powers in one direction at least. 

“Ah, that is it. You can help Ethel, 
then. She is not so good at it. Your room, 
you know, will be with Ethel — she will do 
anything she can, I know, to make it pleas- 
ant for you. Life here is a little different, 
of course, from the country. There are, 
you will understand easily, greater restric- 
tions in some ways. But that will arrange 
itself. You have the fencing-class to-mor- 
row, Ethel ? ” 

“ Yes, Mamma.” 

“ Wear your long box-coat, and I will 
pick you up afterward and take you both 
to the Park. Have you a gymnasium suit, 
Sarah, my dear ? ” 

“ No, I don’t care for gymnastics,” was 
the decided reply. 


20 7 


A Country Cousin 

“So? You probably need them badly, 
then. Harriet's suit is here ; you are about 
of a size, I think. Well, good-by, babies — 
a plus tard! I'll pick you up at four- thirty, 
Ethel. Good-night ! " 

“ Good-night, Mamma ! " and Ethel 
kissed her warmly. Sarah watched them 
wonderingly. Did they go to bed at half- 
past six? 

A scuffle in the hall, a rush, and a little 
boy of nine or ten escaped from a panting 
German woman close behind him. 

“ Mein Kind! mein Kind! was machst 
du " 

But he brushed past the girls and threw 
himself upon the vision in mauve silk and 
amethysts. 

“ Gut nacht , mutter chen! ” he burst out. 
“ A eh, wie schon — wie wunderschon! ” 

She laughed, and kissed him and gave 
him a tiny chocolate, wrapped in silver 
paper, and the nurse bore him off tri- 
umphantly. 

Ethel followed them, and her cousin fol- 
lowed her, lost in wonder and disappoint- 
ment. What did it all mean? Was this 
208 


A Country Cousin 

her welcome? Were no questions to be 
asked her, no conversation thought neces- 
sary? Was she to have nothing to eat? 
Why did they say good-night ? 

“ Is your mother going out to sup — 
dinner?” she asked, as they entered a 
pretty room furnished in pink and white, 
with two little white enamelled beds, two 
white fur rugs, two pretty little maple desks, 
and pink rosebud chintz everywhere. 

“ I think not — I think there’s a dinner- 
party, Papa said ; I heard Dick begging 
Katrina to save him out some almonds and 
the wish-bones of something, and Katrina 
asked him if she should beg them of the 
guests — she is so funny ! ” 

“ A dinner-party — how lovely ! What 
shall you wear?” 

“ I ? Oh, goodness, Vm not going ! ” 

“ Not going? Why ” 

“ Oh, I’m not out at all, you know. We 
don’t come downstairs. I have my lessons 
to get ” 

“ And sha’n’t I go, either? ” 

“ Why, of course not. You’re coming 
to school with me, aren’t you? You can’t 
209 


A Country Cousin 

very well do that and go to formal dinners, 
can you? ” 

Ethel was slipping on a lighter skirt as 
she spoke, and took out a pale pink silk 
blouse, with a soft pink belt a little later, 
through the open closet-door her cousin 
saw dresses of her own ; and one of the chif- 
foniers, she noticed, was half-filled with 
her things: somebody had made quick 
work with them. 

“Then where are you going?” she 
asked, discontentedly. 

“ Why, to supper, of course ! ” answered 
Ethel, tying a pink ribbon to the end of her 
long braid. “This year I went down to 
dinner when there were no guests; but, 
though I’m very strong, I don’t digest 
things quite right, the doctor says, and 
when I had dinner late I always had such 
bad dreams. So he said for me to keep on 
eating supper with Dick for a year, and I’d 
be all right. I’d just as soon. When 
there’s nobody dining here and Papa and 
Mamma aren’t dining out, they often come 
up with us — Papa comes a lot. He likes it 
better.” 


210 


A Country Cousin 

Her cousin sniffed unmistakably ; she 
was still smarting from the lack of cere- 
mony in her reception. To be pushed up- 
stairs to bed like a baby ! To be told that 
she needed gymnastics ! 

The German nurse looked in at the door 
to announce supper, and presently they 
were in the cheeriest of rooms, bright 
from a birch fire, hung with gay pictures 
— a nursery, evidently; but a well-stocked 
book-case, a dumb-waiter set in the wall, 
and a white-spread round table with seats 
for four transformed it into a charming 
combination of study and supper-room. 
At the head of the table sat a sweet-faced, 
delicate-looking woman with slightly 
grayed hair. She rose as the girls entered, 
and walking a little slowly, leaning her 
weight upon a stout cane, came toward 
them. 

“ How do you do, Sarah ? I am Aunt 
Grace, you know,” she said in the same 
rich deep voice that Aunt Harriet had. 
“ Are you going to take my Harriet’s place ? 
You must be very careful! Harriet is a 
very nice young person ! ” 

211 


A Country Cousin 

Harriet’s substitute only smiled uncer- 
tainly. This was a very strange family, 
surely. They made no more of meeting a 
new cousin than of greeting an old ac- 
quaintance. There was no “ breaking the 
ice ” by the use of any set formulas, no 
fear of constraint or possible uncongenial- 
ity, no disturbance of the ordinary routine. 
They seemed to take everything for 
granted. 

At the foot of the table Dick took his 
small but important place, and the girls 
took the sides. Katrina served them with 
a simple well-cooked supper, and their vis- 
itor, her interest roused in spite of herself 
in the little boy’s German chatter, almost 
forgot the series of mortifications she felt 
herself to have encountered. 

After supper — all traces of which were 
cleared away with magical swiftness — 
Dick amused himself with some toys ; 
Ethel, with many groans, set herself at 
writing an essay on “ My Summer Vaca- 
tion,” and Aunt Grace, her hands busied 
with some pale shades of soft wool, be- 
gan to talk in a low voice to her new niece. 


212 


A Country Cousin 

“ I am very fond of your name,” she said, 
“ it was my mother’s, and ” 

“ They always call me Sadie,” interrupt- 
ed the girl. 

“ But surely Sarah is far better ! We are 
getting to drop those shortened names, very 
fortunately, I ” 

“ I hate Sarah. It’s so old-fashioned,” 
interrupted the owner of that name again. 

Aunt Grace lifted her soft brown eyes 
from her crocheting and fixed them full on 
her niece. 

“ There is one thing that is never old- 
fashioned, my dear, and that is cour- 
tesy,” she said quietly, but with decision. 
“ Do you know that twice just now you 
have begun to speak before I had fin- 
ished? ” 

The girl flushed with surprise and irrita- 
tion. Never in years had she been correct- 
ed so openly, so calmly. She glanced to 
see if Ethel or Dick were laughing at her, 
but they were paying no attention what- 
ever. 

“ I don’t know what you mean — I think 
I’m old enough — that is, I didn’t intend — ” 
213 


A Country Cousin 

she stammered, but Aunt Grace smiled at 
her and continued : 

“ I know you would not intentionally be 
rude, my dear girl, but that is the great 
importance of perfectly careful manners, 
that they relieve us from the necessity of 
making allowances for people based on 
what we suppose to be their essentially 
good intentions. We must learn to ex- 
press those intentions suitably, and not fall 
back on people’s charity, which as culti- 
vated ladies we have no right to demand.” 

Sarah listened, her eyes in her lap, her 
cheeks still red. 

“ Now I am going to take you in Harriet’s 
place, my dear, and if you will let me, try 
to do for you what I was glad to do for her. 
It is impossible for a young girl, with all 
the lessons of her books and the world to 
learn, to seize intuitively all that there is 
to know of the manners and customs of her 
social circle. These things must be taught. 
One of my greatest pleasures, invalid as I 
am and unable to go out in society, has 
been to fit my nieces for it; and my sister 
has given this training, to a great extent, 
214 


A Country Cousin 

to me. She is a woman of wide social in- 
terests and duties, and you will doubtless 
while you are with us see far more of me 
than of her. So it is best for us to under- 
stand each other at once.” 

Sarah could not realize immediately that 
this slender, pale, gray-haired woman was 
as accustomed to controlling others, as cer- 
tain of obedience and respectful submis- 
sion, as her brilliant sister. But as Aunt 
Grace talked on, gently always, but firmly, 
and utterly unconscious, apparently, of the 
possibility of any protest, the girl felt in- 
stinctively that she was in the midst of a 
new order of things, where she, and not 
those about her, must conform. Argument 
was clearly out of the question. Grum- 
bling, she realized, would not be expected 
or tolerated. If Aunt Grace chose to cor- 
rect her and deliver little lectures on man- 
ners and morals, she must listen patiently ; 
it was comforting to observe that Ethel 
paid no attention and seemed to see noth- 
ing at all unusual in a young lady’s being 
reproved for interrupting. 

Aunt Grace had glided imperceptibly 

215 


A Country Cousin 

from the subject, and presently, before she 
knew it, Sarah was confiding her plans and 
dreams for the winter to a polite and atten- 
tive listener. She described the long dull 
evenings at home; the lack of excitement, 
of pleasant companionship, of all that her 
eager social little nature craved so keenly. 

“ And this will be so different ! ” she 
sighed impulsively. 

Aunt Grace watched her critically, try- 
ing to pierce below the superficial self-con- 
fidence of her new charge ; anxious to see 
if behind those deep violet eyes lay a really 
strong nature, justly demanding wider op- 
portunities for action ; or if only a longing 
for excitement and display had brought 
the flush to her soft pink cheeks. Some- 
thing in the clear direct look that the girl 
in her earnestness, surprised out of her arti- 
ficial mannerisms, gave her, seemed to re- 
assure her, for she leaned forward and 
patted Sarah’s hand lightly. 

“ A good stone bears hard cutting, my 
dear,” she said, “ and you may take Har- 
riet’s place yet ! ” 

Then she sent them to bed, and remem- 
216 


A Country Cousin 

bering with a momentary pang that of all 
the fascinating company downstairs she 
had not caught one glimpse, Sarah fol- 
lowed her sleepy cousin to their room. 

“ I was riding all the early afternoon,” 
Ethel explained, “ and it does make me so 
tired by half-past nine ! ” 

Curled up in her little white bed, Sarah 
reviewed the day's experiences. They had 
been very different from what she had ex- 
pected, certainly. Perhaps to-morrow 

“ You don't go to school Saturdays, do 
you ? " she inquired of the other little bed. 

“ No,” murmured Ethel, drowsily, “ but 
I have my music-lesson in the morning, 
and the shampooer comes after that, and 
my hair is so thick and takes so long 1 And 
after lunch there's a rehearsal for our 
dancing-class party, and then I go to gym., 
and then — then — ” she was drifting off, 
but Sarah pulled her back. 

“Then?” she repeated. 

“ Then we’ll drive with Mamma and — 
and — oh, that’s all. Good-night ! ” 

Sarah scowled into the darkness. Was 
this all, literally all ? While she complained 
217 


A Country Cousin 

to herself she must have fallen asleep — for 
how long she did not know — when she 
suddenly awoke. She felt thirsty, and re- 
membering the position of the white-tiled, 
porcelain-fitted bath-room, she slipped 
out of bed and went in for a drink. As 
she sipped the cool water slowly, a mur- 
mur of voices reached her ear. 

“ Oh, of course, get them all new. 
Felice assures me they are equally impos- 
sible. I had thought she might simplify 
two or three and they would do for school 
dresses, but Felice says they are so cut up 
and embroidered and twisted into imita- 
tions of styles years too old for her that it 
is out of the question.” 

“ She is very, very pretty, Harriet.” 

“ Is she ? I was disappointed, I must 
say. She looked like a waitress, I 
thought.” 

“ Oh, no, dear. When I get her hair 
down and smooth, and those dreadful cheap 
corsets and boots off, and when she’s had 
a quarter’s fencing and learns not to strut 
when she walks and to keep her hands and 
feet still ” 


218 


A Country Cousin 

“ You angel, I believe you love to do 
it!” 

“ Why, of course I do. She’ll make a 
fine woman, I think, Hatty. It was pretty 
hard for her, a great deal of what she met 
with — she’s utterly undisciplined, you see, 
not a bit of manner — and she took it very 
well for a high-spirited girl. Do you know, 
she reminds me very much of Mother 
Hoyt? She’s not a bit like her father or 
her mother.” 

“ I didn’t see it, myself. Mother Hoyt 
was a beauty and a belle, too. But then, 
as you say, when she’s dressed and gets a 
little more possible manner, we’ll be able 
to tell better. How is Dicky? I thought 
he seemed a little feverish.” 

They passed on down the quiet hall and 
a door closed softly — the door of Dick’s 
little room. Sarah sat dumb and humili- 
ated on the cool tiled floor and wept tears 
of shame and anger. 

Stay in this house? Stay to be insulted 
and criticised and patronized? Never! 
She would take the first train back. Har- 
riet might return when she liked to this 
219 


A Country Cousin 

cold supercilious household — these unfeel- 
ing society women ! 

But, stop — she seemed to hear again 
Dicky’s loving shout, “ Gut nacht, miitter- 
chenl ” She saw again Ethel’s glowing 
face as she laughed with her mother ; 
she heard the question, “ I thought he 
seemed a little feverish ? ” and admitted to 
herself that this woman was not a cold 
thoughtless mother. 

And then she remembered Aunt Har- 
riet’s advice about buying very few clothes : 
such opportunities were so much greater 
here. She recalled her mother’s sensible 
suggestion : “ Get plain things, Sadie, and 
then Aunt Harriet can add to them if she 
wants. If you fuss them up so, she can’t 
change them,” and her scornful repudiation 
of the suggestion. Her quick eye had 
taught her in this short time that, simple 
as Ethel’s clothes were, they were perfectly 
made from fine materials and hung with a 
grace that no amount of careful imitation 
in cheap fabric could even faintly approx- 
imate. 

“ When she’s dressed and gets a little 


220 


A Country Cousin 

more possible manner ! ” She, Sadie, the 
fine-mannered member of the family ! 
Why, she had always been teased about 
it ! 

“ When she learns not to strut ! ” Was 
that what her mother called “ niminy- 
piminy ? ” 

“ To keep her hands and feet still ! ” 
She had always twisted her fingers. What 
harm did it do? She couldn’t study with- 
out that. 

She lay at full length on the shining 
floor, only a dim night-light burning above 
her head, and cried as she had never cried 
before. How the boys would marvel at her 
humiliation — how little they had guessed 
how much she had to learn ! And she had 
said so conceitedly to herself that Harriet 
really belonged in the country, and that she 
was most fitted for all the advantages Har- 
riet could not grasp! And now she saw 
that all Harriet’s simplicity, all her quiet 
direct manners, had been taught her — she 
had learned them in the city ! 

For half an hour her pride raged and 
wept alternately. Then slowly, as the af- 
22 1 


A Country Cousin 

ternoon sky clears for a soft bright sunset, 
a calmer, more reasonable mood crept 
over her stormy little soul. The native 
good-sense in her, the quick wit that had 
showed her so often the follies of others, 
showed her now her own. What a spirit 
she had come in — not to learn, to be 
helped to the thing she wanted most; but 
to show how little she needed such help ! 
Not to fit in as easily and unobtrusively as 
she could to her new home, but to make 
her individuality as prominent as possible. 
Not to seem grateful, but disdainful, at this 
family life offered her so simply. 

Slowly her crying ceased, and her lips 
took on a sweeter curve, her eyes a softer 
light. A different girl got up from the cold 
floor and stole in, tired and with reddened 
lids, but with a quieter heart, to bed. It 
was later than she knew, and she overslept 
till nine in the morning, to find a dainty 
breakfast-tray by her side and Katrina, all 
smiles, to see if she were well rested. 

Ethel was at her music-lesson, Dicky 
was out for his roller-skating, and only 
Aunt Grace was with her when the sham- 


222 


A Country Cousin 

pooer rubbed and brushed her wavy gold 
hair, ending with: 

“And if you’ll curl it less, Miss Hoyt, 
and brush it more, you’ll have a fine head 
of hair later on. It takes the life out of it 
and dries it so. And how do you wish for 
it to be done, Miss Meade? ” 

Yesterday she would have gasped at the 
question; to-day she sat quietly while 
Aunt Grace answered: 

“ Just a low knot at the back, Mrs. Arch- 
er, I think, or those pretty Gretchen braids 
wound about the head, perhaps.” 

“ That’s it, Miss Meade — the very 
thing ! ” And Sarah saw the pure curved 
lines of her own head for the first time in 
years. 

Aunt Grace nodded with satisfaction. 

“ Very pretty, indeed,” she said, approv- 
ingly. “ Your head is uncommonly well 
shaped, my dear.” 

Then, as Sarah turned to put on her 
dress, the older woman laid a hand on her 
arm. 

“ I have been looking over your clothes, 
Sarah, and find them, as I had supposed 
223 


A Country Cousin 

they would be, a little too elaborate for 
school and street wear here. We do not 
dress young girls in large figured silks 
now, and as you will easily see, while it is 
quite unnecessary for young girls to fol- 
low the intricacies of the latest fashions, 
it will be vastly more comfortable for you 
to be dressed in the style of your school- 
mates. Nothing is more trying than a con- 
sciousness of looking unusual, I think, 
though it is a small matter, from one point 
of view, of course, and fortunately easily 
remedied.” 

Sarah blushed a little, but met Aunt 
Graced eye firmly. 

“ Yes, Aunt Grace, I see what you 
mean,” she answered. 

Aunt Grace looked much relieved. 
“ Several things have come up from the 
shops and Felice and I will help you with 
them now, my dear,” she said, and they 
went into the bedroom. The daintiest 
fawn-colored suit lay on the bed; a dark 
blue plaid short skirt and blouse hung on 
one chair; a big soft felt hat with a long 
gray quill occupied another, and a pretty 
224 


A Country Cousin 

Kttle rough short jacket, with heavy gray 
gloves lying on it, covered her elaborate 
astrachan coat. 

“ With this for school and this for church 
and a silk waist or two, we shall do very 
well to begin with,” said Aunt Grace, as 
Felice patted the folds of the skirt into 
shape and privately kicked the long stiff 
corset into the closet. 

“ When the dancing class begins, a light 
thin silk with a tucked waist — you are so 
slender — and a long coat, and I think you 
will do very well,” she concluded. 

“ Maintemnt, Mademoiselle — re gardes ! ” 
and Felice led her to the pier glass. She 
could not restrain a little cry of surprise. 
Was this Sadie? This girl, who looked — 
yes, like Ethel and Harriet, and yet so 
much prettier? For it was an undeniable 
fact that if she had looked pretty in her 
tortured, ribboned, pleated dresses, she 
was lovely indeed in the rich dark blue 
gown that hung so gracefully from her 
slender shoulders and threw out the pink 
of her cheeks and the fluffy yellow of her 
snugly braided hair. 

225 


A Country Cousin 

Ethel, who came in at that moment, 
stood in the frankest admiration. 

“ Why, why, you pretty, pretty thing ! ” 
she cried. “ You're too dear to call Sarah ; 
I’m going to call you Sallie ! ” 

And though she thought Sallie was 
worse than Sarah, and could not under- 
stand why it should be more fashionable 
than Sadie, so thoroughly had she got her- 
self in hand that she smiled and answered, 
a little shyly, it is true, but with real 
warmth : 

“ Call me anything you like, Ethel ! ” and 
they went down to lunch arm in arm. 

Uncle Will had come up from town for 
the day, and she met him at the table: a 
quiet reserved man, with little resem- 
blance to her father except when his rare 
smile reminded her of her father’s frequent 
one. His clothes were like the pictures in 
tailors’ plates, and his manner, as he hand- 
ed John the cutlets, all that his little niece 
had ever imagined a great banker’s should 
be. 

The dining-room was beautiful; Aunt 
Grace, who took her sister’s place at the 
226 


A Country Cousin 

head of the table — Sarah wondered where 
Aunt Harriet was lunching — was kindness 
itself; Ethel lost any little tone of patron- 
age she might have had, and Dicky spilled 
some milk in his lap, so absorbed was he in 
watching his new cousin’s big dimple. 

Uncle Will seemed much interested in 
her progress; and when he had heard the 
program for the next week — an alternation 
of lessons all the morning ; walks, rides, or 
gymnasium in the early afternoon; music 
or French later, with studying after sup- 
per — he pretended to be much shocked at 
such a dull round of work. 

“ And riding-school, too ? ” he inquired, 
sympathetically , “ and visiting the chil- 
dren’s hospital and Once-a-week House- 
hold Economic Classes, I’ll wager. And a 
Girls’ Friendly, to meet at the house, and 
dancing classes, and Emergency-or-How- 
to-Help-in-Cases-of-Accident lectures, too. 
Oh, yes, I know, I know! Ethel’s just 
worn to a shadow with it, poor child ! Not 
a minute to call her own or see her father 
in — not one ! Could no more be spared, I 
suppose, to give up her fencing and come 
227 


A Country Cousin 

to the matinee with him and Sallie, and 
then have a little supper afterward, some- 
where or other, than ” 

“ Oh, Papa ! do you mean it ? Is that 
why you’re home? ” 

“ Well, you see I didn’t want Miss Sallie 
to feel that life was dull down here, and so 
I cheerfully sacrificed the opportunity to 
make seven thousand eight hundred and 
ninety-five dollars, and came up to see 
what you thought of my scheme.” 

“ I haven’t been since we came back,” 
declared Ethel, solemnly. 

“ Now you see what these New York 
girls want, Cousin Sallie,” explained Uncle 
Will. “ Take their families, take their 
clothes, take — take their chocolate nougat, 
but give them the matinee, or they per- 
ish ! ” 

“ It’s only once a week,” murmured 
Ethel, “ and then, only if I’m a model of 
‘ purity, propriety, and precision ! ’ ” 

And while she ate her lunch there faded 
slowly out from Cousin Sallie’s mind the 
last vestige of these foolish air-castles that 
had no deeper foundation than her own 
228 


A Country Cousin 

vague desires. In their place she found 
pleasant pictures of a life far busier and 
more restricted than she guessed at; far 
narrower in its responsibility and impor- 
tance than her conceited dream had al- 
lowed, but far better suited, she plainly 
saw, to her ignorance and her seventeen 
years. The pleasures, she realized, would 
be all the sweeter for her work to deserve 
them ; the duties easy through her very 
lack of responsibility in assuming them. 
Aunt Grace would see to all that. 

And though she could not chat so inti- 
mately with Aunt Harriet as that silly 
Sadie had long ago — so long, it seemed — 
anticipated, yet she could live with her, see 
her, try to be like her, and some day, per- 
haps, be worthy of her pains and kindness. 

“ Mamma is awfully pleased with you, 
Sallie,” confided Ethel, late that night. 
“ She says you have great possibilities ; she 
says when Harriet comes back she’ll give 
you a coming-out party together. Won’t 
that be grand ? ” 

“ Aunt Harriet is too good to me,” said 
Sallie, softly. “ I don’t deserve it. To do 
229 


A Country Cousin 

so much for just a country cousin ! for that 
is all I am, you know.” 

“ Oh, nonsense, you’re not ! ” protested 
Ethel, warmly. “ You’re not a bit; at first 
we thought you were — a little — but now 
we don’t at all. You’re just one of us. 
I’m awfully glad you came ! ” 

“ You can’t be so glad as I am ! ” said 
her cousin, simply, and she fell asleep, truly 
at home to-night. 


230 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 











The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

i. 



N old gentleman, with a thin, nervous 


i \ face, was rolling in an invalid's chair 
through a beautiful park, full of winding 
paths and tall vase-shaped trees. Over 
his shrunken knees a rug was spread, 
though it was midsummer, and his coat 
was of the thinnest silk. His body above 
the waist was full of eager motions, and his 
delicate hands were hardly for a moment 
quiet as he talked to the man-servant who 
pushed his chair, but the limbs under the 
concealing rug were absolutely still. 

“ What’s this, Morgan ? What’s this ? ” 
he burst out, irritably. “ I hear voices — 
chattering voices! Can I never ride out 
but I must be gaped at? Is this a public 
pleasure-ground ? ” 

Morgan stopped the chair and coughed 
apologetically. 


233 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

“ It’s a good while you've not been 'ere, 
sir, and they seemed to take an enjoyment 
in it, especially the old summer-’ouse, sir, 
and the young lady being so quiet, and 

hoffering to go, if agreeable, sir ” 

“ But those are children’s voices ! ” 
“Yes, sir; the two little lads, sir; and 
the young lady seems a kind of governess, 
sir, though young for the place. She told 
me she was bound to keep ’em hout in the 
hair, sir, most of the day, and the sun be- 
ing sometimes bad for her ’ead she would 
sit in the summer-’ouse if convenient, 
which there was a great gap in the hedge, 
sir, and the boys crept between the bars. 
There’s no one else as hever comes, Mr. 
Damon, you may be sure of that, sir.” 

“ Very well. Turn the chair and I will 
go to the south end.” 

But, just as Morgan stepped behind his 
master again, a shrill voice broke the 
decorous quiet of the trees. 

“ Ladies and gentlemens, it gives me 

great pleasure to winderdooce ” 

“ Interduce, you silly ! ” 

“ To interduce Mr. — Mr. ” 

234 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

“ James Russell Lowell, Esquire ! ” 

“ Mr. Jay Wussell Odell, ’Squire, who 
will talk to us this afternoon on — on ” 

“ Temperance, woman suffrage, and 
veg’tarinism ! ” interrupted the second 
voice, impatiently. “ Now, go back, 
Waldy, and be audience.” 

“ Bless my soul, how extraordinary ! 
James Russell Lowell — what does the 
child mean ? ” muttered the invalid. 

Morgan smiled patronizingly. 

“ They’re very hodd children, sir,” he 
explained, “ very hodd, and as strange to 
look at. Many’s the time I’ve listened to 
’em, sir. Would you care to see ’em, Mr. 
Damon? They’re right behind the sum- 
mer-’ouse, sir. They’ll not see you, for 
they’re that took up with the game, sir, they 
know nothing helse for the time being.” 

At a nod from his master he propelled 
the chair down a side path, and stopped just 
behind a drooping bough. 

Before them, on an immense stump 
levelled off and vine-draped, stood a 
youngster of eight or nine. He wore 
awkwardly cut knee-trousers of checked 
235 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

blue gingham, a loose blouse of the same, 
gray woollen stockings, and exaggeratedly 
broad-toed shoes. No belt nor neck-tie 
adorned his suit, which was held together 
by large, yellowish bone buttons. His 
light brown hair was shaved tight to his 
head, his gray eyes frowned out under al- 
most colorless eyebrows. Altogether he 
looked like a member of some institution 
for unfortunate children. Below him, 
seated on a large stone evidently dragged 
from the wall, was another boy of per- 
haps six. In everything but size he was 
the facsimile of his brother — eyebrows, 
square-toed boots, ugly clothes, and se- 
vere frown. 

“ Ladies and gentlemen ! ” exclaimed 
the orator, didactically. “ It is high time 
that these principles was known to all of 
you. We are at a very dangerous point 
indeed, and you all oughter know it. 
When an ignorant Irishman can cast a 
ballot denied — denied — I mean, when an 
ignorant Irishman is denied to women 
cultivated as we are here ” 

A burst of laughter interrupted the 
236 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

speaker, and he turned inquiringly toward 
the sheltering bough. 

“ Come here, sir, and tell me your name,” 
called the invalid, and without a moment’s 
hesitation, the older boy climbed down 
from the stump and walked over to the 
chair. He neither smiled nor looked shy. 
He did not appear even interested. With 
the same solemn frown, and the same 
didactic manner, he announced : 

“ I am Thoreau Channing Parker Dilts, 
and he,” pointing to his brother, “ is Ralph 
Waldo Emerson Dilts.” 

“ Good heavens ! ” exclaimed the old 
gentleman. “ And what was that mixture 
of folly you were spouting? ” 

“ ’Tisn’t a mixture of folly — it’s a lek- 
shure,” said Thoreau Channing Parker 
Dilts, rebukingly. 

“ Where did you hear it ? ” 

“ My mother gives it. My mother is 
Mrs. Lucia Harriet Dilts: she knows a 
good many lekshures.” 

“ Oh ! And are you and your brother 
here alone ? ” 

“ No, Cynthia’s in the summer-house. 
237 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

Cynthia says she won’t stay out in the air 
because it’s hyg’enic. She stays there all 
the time. She hates sanitary things.” 

Ralph Waldo Emerson Dilts had been 
slowly approaching them, and he now 
opened his mouth and said, briefly: 

“ Cynthy’s eating flesh-pots ! ” 

“What? What? Bless my soul, Mor- 
gan, what does he mean?*” cried the in- 
valid. 

“ Waldy means that she longs after 
them, not eats them,” his brother explained. 
“ My mother says that all she thinks of is 
flesh-pots.” 

“ Flesh-pots? ” 

“ Of Egypt. It is in the Bible. But it 
never happened, really — Waldy thinks it 
did. It’s only a symbol. The whole 
Bible,” he continued, raising his voice and 
looking sternly at Morgan, “ is only a sym- 
bol. We are not to regard it as anything 
else. A priest-ridden multitude ” 

“ Dear me, dear me ! ” murmured the 
old gentleman. “ You are the most extra- 
ordinary child I ever saw! You are un- 
canny, positively. Has Cynthia found 
238 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

many flesh-pots in my summer-house? I 
never knew there were any there.” 

At that moment the door of the summer- 
house opened, and a tall slender girl ap- 
peared. At first glance she seemed to re- 
semble the boys closely, but a careful 
inspection brought out the fact that the 
likeness was only one of costume. She 
wore a scant skirt and shapeless blouse of 
the same blue checked gingham that 
clothed the boys. It was absolutely un- 
adorned by frill or tuck, buttoned together 
with the same hideous bone buttons, and 
short enough to display ankles in gray 
stockings and heavy, square-toed shoes. 
But she did not really look like them. 
Her eyes were almost black, her eyebrows 
straight and well marked; her hair, which 
was cut short like a boy’s, dark and curly. 
In spite of her orphan-asylum uniform she 
was a very pretty girl, though she lacked 
color, and her expression was sad to dis- 
content. 

Like the boys, she showed no embarrass- 
ment, but came straight to the chair. 

“ If I trouble you by going in the sum- 
239 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

mer-house, I will stop it,” she said, ab- 
ruptly. 

The old gentleman looked curiously at 
her. “ Not at all,” he said, courteously, 
“ not at all. Do you prefer it to the park ? 
I should think the air ” 

“ Oh, the air ! ” she burst out, with a 
sudden gesture of contempt, “ I’m tired of 
air!” 

“ Indeed ! ” he replied. “ When you 
have been ill for months together, and 
must go without it, you will not feel so.” 

She made no answer, and a little silence 
fell on them all. Presently he said, whim- 
sically, “ And why is your name not Mary 
Lyon Larcom Stowe Dilts, my dear ? 
‘ Cynthia ’ was never a philosopher or a 
reformer, was she ? ” 

“ My name is not Dilts at all,” she re- 
plied quickly. “ It’s Cynthia Maydew.” 

“ Cynthia Maydew,” he repeated. “ It 
is almost too sweet to be true. A charm- 
ing name. And how old are you, Cynthia 
Maydew? ” 

“ I am seventeen,” she said. 

He looked at her fixedly. His face grew 
240 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

sad. “ I had a daughter, and she was 
seventeen just before — before she left me,” 
he said softly. “ But she was happier than 
you look, my dear.” 

“ I am not happy at all,” Cynthia an- 
swered, in a matter-of-fact tone. She 
might have been saying that she was not 
cold at all. 

“ Seventeen, and pretty to look at, and 
well and strong, and not happy? How is 
that, Cynthia Maydew ? ” 

“ I suppose it is because I do not care 
to lead the higher life,” she replied, calmly, 
“ and because I like mutton-chops and 
thinner shoes and hate culture. And I 
would rather do my hair up, and spend the 
time on it, wicked or not ! ” 

The old gentleman gasped. 

“ Mutton-chops ! Culture ! Do your 
hair up ! How extraordinary ! ” he ex- 
claimed. “ Can’t you eat chops ? ” 

“ We are veg-tarians,” explained Tho- 
reau Channing Parker Dilts, “ and so we 
don’t eat chops.” 

“ What do you eat, then ? ” 

“ We eat nuts and beans and porridge,” 
241 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

said the boy, in a tone that implied long 
practice in giving this catalogue, “ and 
then we have grain food. There is more 
nour’shment in one table-spoonful of grain 
food than in five pounds of beef ! ” 

“ Oh, is there ? ” remarked Mr. Damon. 
“ It doesn’t sound very attractive, some- 
how, and it doesn’t seem to make your 
cheeks very red.” 

“ That’s what I said to Aunt Lucia,” said 
Cynthia quickly. “ If all these things are 
so healthy, why aren’t the boys better? 
The little Wallace boys next door are 
brought up wickedly, she says, and they 
eat everything ; and they are punished, too, 
and she says that is barbarous ” 

“ I can hear them cwying and kicking ! ” 
said Ralph Waldo Emerson, in horrified 
tones. 

“ But their cheeks are red ? ” suggested 
Mr. Damon, smiling. 

“ Yes, and they stay in more, too,” said 
Cynthia, wearily. “ They have such a 
pretty nursery ! ” 

“ Cynthy likes wall-paper,” said the old- 
er boy. “ She says she’d rather have 
242 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

germs than slippery, gray paint. She 
don’t like green shades for the windows, 
either. Curtains,” he added, again fixing 
his eye on Morgan’s, “ curtains gathers the 
dust. We don’t have ’em.” 

Morgan stepped back to avoid the frown 
of this sanitary reformer, and muttered 
something under his breath. 

“ Perhaps,” said Mr. Damon, briskly, 
“ you boys would like a piece of cake and 
— and a peach, say? With a glass of 
milk? A little lunch in the middle of the 
afternoon is not a bad thing. Suppose you 
step around with them, Morgan, and see 
that they get it ; I will stay here with Miss 
Cynthia Maydew, for whom you will please 
bring a chair from the summer-house.” 

“ They are not allowed to eat cake,” said 
Cynthia, “ but the milk I should think they 
might have, and the peaches. You are 
very kind ” 

“ We can’t eat peaches and milk to- 
gether, Cynthia,” interrupted Thoreau, 
reprovingly. “ We can have either the 
peach or the milk, but not both.” 

“ Oh, dear,” sighed Cynthia, “ I didn’t 
243 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

remember ! I knew you couldn’t have 
milk and sugar together, but I didn’t know 
about the peaches.” 

“Well, we can’t; can we, Waldy?” re- 
peated Thoreau, as they followed Morgan. 

“ And bring us out a little lunch, too, 
Morgan ! ” Mr. Damon called, as they dis- 
appeared. 

Left alone with her host, Cynthia found 
herself growing strangely confidential. 
She could not tell why it was that after 
three years of her present existence, it had 
suddenly grown so unbearable to her. 
But whatever the reason, the fact was 
there. Night after night she dreamed 
back to the old life, that charming, happy 
life in the quiet suburban town that the 
park reminded her of so pleasantly. The 
little house was so pretty ; the pictures and 
the rugs and the quaint brocades and fans 
and jugs her artist father had picked up in 
his wanderings made it a delight to even 
learn one’s lessons there. There was no 
mother, but Cynthia hardly remembered 
her, she had died so soon ; and Joseph, the 
Belgian valet, was cook and nurse and 
244 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

housekeeper for the little establishment. 
In the mornings they had lessons, and in 
the afternoons they jumped on their wheels 
and took the sketching things and went off 
together. They put up the easel miles off 
in the woods, or under a little hill or by a 
beautiful bend of the river, and Cynthia 
made lace after the old Flemish pattern 
Joseph had taught her, or hunted for mush- 
rooms for Joseph’s sauces, or wrote little 
things in French for her father to criticise. 
Or she sat by him and listened to his de- 
scriptions of the wonderful places she was 
to see with him some day — Venice and 
Rome and Switzerland and Florence, that 
city of cities. They were always together, 
and were always going to be. And when 
she married some great capitalist or Indian 
viceroy, he was to have a studio there, just 
the same. The viceroy and the capitalist, 
too, he said, might be proud to eat Joseph’s 
omelets occasionally. 

There had never been much money, but 
they had never needed it. Joseph could 
make a dollar do the work of five, and her 
father found such pretty, pale sheer lawns 
245 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

and soft dull wools in out-of-the-way 
shops in the city, and gave the dressmaker 
such amusing and vivid descriptions of 
how they should be made up that she said 
his ideas alone were worth the making to 
her! He had always wanted her to look 
well, to be pretty. 

“ It costs no more to do it the right way 
than to do it the wrong way/’ he used to 
say. " Make the world bright and good 
to look at, my dear; there’s enough of the 
other sort ! If you’ve only bread and 
grapes, set them on daintily and wear your 
prettiest ribbon. Once, in Spain, I had 
only a handful of nuts for dessert, but the 
waiter sang me a song while I ate them, 
and gave me such a bow when I left that 
I forgot whether it had been a feast or 
not ! ” 

They would come home from their wan- 
dering through the dusk, hungry and 
happy, with the sketch-book full ; and 
Joseph, in his short white jacket, would 
greet them at the door, obsequious as a 
butler, affectionate as an uncle, as they used 
to say. Then he would stand behind the 
246 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

chair, struggling to hide his delight as Mr. 
Maydew would say, gravely : 

“ Joseph, Joseph, I fear this can’t go on ! 
It won’t do: I can’t afford it. You never 
got this meat for less than a dollar, Joseph, 
and we were going to economize, you 
know, after the chicken yesterday.” 

“ Twenty cent, m’sieu, and ze parslee ! ” 
and his face would break into triumphant 
smiles. 

Then, after dinner, Cynthia would bring 
the little cup of coffee and the cigarette, 
and they would sit on the porch and plan 
out new pictures till bed-time. 

She had thought it would never change, 
that happy life, and yet in one week it was 
all behind her. Her father had never been 
strong since her mother’s death, and now 
it seemed that he was far weaker than they 
had thought, and must go away at once. 
There was a different climate for every sea- 
son, and he could do himself most good by 
three years of the wandering knapsack life 
of his student days. To take her with him 
was out of the question; there was not 
money enough, and then, it was not the 
247 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

right sort of life for her. She must wait 
somewhere here for him ; the years would 
pass. 

He had a half-brother living in the city, 
who was married and had a family of his 
own. He was not very successful in busi- 
ness, and his wife, Mr. Maydew under- 
stood, was a little odd ; but she was a well- 
educated woman and rather sensible and 
pleasant as he remembered her — he had 
seen her only once. She would be glad of 
the little money Cynthia could afford to 
pay them, and would look after her with 
her own children. The shock that the 
knowledge of his condition had brought 
him had told a little on her father’s nerves, 
and he began to fear that he had not 
brought her up properly — not given her 
the advantages of a more normal family 
life. 

“ And that is what Aunt Lucia said as 
soon as I came,” Cynthia added. 

Morgan appeared at just that point in 
her confidences with a loaded tray ; another 
servant followed with a standard to hold it. 
He set it out before the invalid chair, and 
248 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

an irrepressible smile of delight brought 
out a hitherto concealed dimple in Cyn- 
thia’s cheek. She had not seen a luncheon 
like that for three years. On the heavy 
silvery damask were dainty plates of wil- 
low-ware — deep Canton blue; one held 
crimson and yellow peaches, another was 
heaped with fairy-like lettuce sandwiches, 
cut wafer-thin ; on a third lay thick slices 
of fruit-cake. Two tall slender glasses 
held a fragrant ice-filled drink, and by 
Cynthia’s plate a slender bunch of water- 
lilies had been placed. 

“ Very good; very good, indeed,” said 
Mr. Damon. “ Now, my dear Miss Cym 
thia Maydew, I hope you will eat as much 
as I should like to,” he concluded, noticing 
with approval the graceful motions of the 
slim wrists in the ill-fitting blue checked 
sleeves as she served him with an ease 
noted by Morgan as well as his master. 

“ And as the sun will soon be too hot 
just here, suppose we go into the summer- 
house when we have finished. I have no 
doubt the young gentlemen will like to see 
the gold-fish and the dogs, Morgan.” 

249 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

Morgan looked incredulous, but depart- 
ed on his mission, and while Cynthia ate 
and drank with more appetite than she had 
felt for a long while, her host talked most 
entertainingly, drawing out much informa- 
tion in a quiet way and appreciating better 
than she knew the empty dreariness of her 
life. 

“ It isn’t that Aunt Lucia doesn’t mean 
to be kind,” she said sadly, as Morgan’s 
assistant returned for the tray, “ but we are 
so different, she and I, and — and she is very 
hard to disagree with. All this last year 
I’ve been thinking, ‘ It’s only one year 
more — only one ; ’ but now that father has 
this invitation and the cruise is for two 
years, and of course he ought to go, it 
seems as if I couldn’t bear it! He’s cured 
now, but the doctor says that this trip will 
make it perfectly certain, and that it’s the 
best possible thing for him.” 

“ Perhaps the time will pass quicker than 
you think,” said the old gentleman, kindly. 
“ At any rate, come here as often as you 
like, Miss Cynthia Maydew, if the summer- 
house pleases you.” 


250 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

For she was rising to go. The clock in 
the near-by church-tower had struck five, 
and Thoreau Channing Parker Dilts was 
calling her from the gap in the hedge. 

w We have to get the car/’ she explained, 
quickly. “ It goes in five minutes ; you 
have been very kind,” and she was gone. 

Left alone, Mr. Damon sat in silence, 
Morgan standing silent behind him. 

“ Take me to the summer-house, Mor- 
gan,” he said, finally. “ It’s many a year 
since I went in there.” 

“Yes, sir; but it’s dreadful dusty in 
there, sir — dreadful. All forsaken and not 
used, like ” 

He stopped abruptly at the look on his 
master’s face, and wheeled the chair into 
the low room. A quick relief came into 
his honest eyes. 

“ It’s none so dusty, Mr. Damon, after 
all, sir, is it? ” he said, cheerfully. Indeed, 
it was not. 

The hard-wood floor was neatly brushed, 
the worn old rugs tenderly coaxed into the 
best possible shape, the chairs dusted, the 
little fireplace cleared of soot and rubbish. 

251 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

The faded water-colors were hung with an 
unerring taste in the best light, the rain- 
washed soggy cushions piled as lightly as 
might be on the big rustic divan, and over 
the mantel and on the broken frames of the 
pictures graceful lengths of the vine that 
overrun the house were thrown. On a lit- 
tle rickety tea-table some broken cups and 
saucers were carefully arranged, the tar- 
nished spoons laid in a row, a bunch of 
golden-rod in the middle. 

“ She did this, bless her heart ! ” the old 
gentleman murmured, half to himself. 

“ Yes, sir, and gathered those broken 
cups out from the fire, sir; and asked me 
for a broom, sir, but I had forgot it,” said 
Morgan. “ I thought there’d be no objec- 
tion, sir, as no one helse ’as hever come, 
which it was the little lad making a speech 
to the gardener’s boy as drew my attention 
to ’em first, sir. He’s a hodd one, sir, if 
ever was.” 

But Mr. Damon was not so much inter- 
ested in the little lad. 

“ Those cushions are all faded and 
stained, and those rugs are disgraceful ! ” 
252 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

he exclaimed. “ The chairs are broken, 
too, and the wainscot discolored. Get 
some fresh cushions, Morgan, and see to 
the furniture. I’ll send a man — or, wait! 
Louis shall see to it himself: it will give 
him something to do. It is shameful that 
the place should be so neglected. To 
think that all her pretty little womanly in- 
stincts — flesh-pots, indeed ! ” 

And Morgan wheeled him away wonder- 
ingly. 


II. 

The noisy, jarring car-ride was almost 
unnoticed by one, at least, of the blue- 
ginghamed trio ; Cynthia’s heart was light, 
her courage high. She had found a 
friend; somebody understood her, some- 
body realized the value of all the graceful, 
lovely arts of life she had almost begun to 
believe a foolish idiosyncrasy of her own 
idle hours. Somebody thought her life 
worth while, even if she had not the high 
impersonal aims of her aunt, and neglected 
the numerous causes that occupied that 
253 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

lady’s attention. For though he had said 
nothing of the sort, the pleasant, whimsical 
regard of the old gentleman had somehow 
indicated that a kindly fellow-feeling for 
all, a braveness under hard circumstances, 
a desire to do one’s duty, and a faculty for 
graceful artistic fashions of living were not 
utterly unworthy characteristics for a lit- 
tle maid of seventeen. He did not think 
that her father had brought her up scan- 
dalously ! 

Her aunt was not quick to notice 
changes of expression in individuals, her 
mind being fixed for the most part on hu- 
manity as a whole. But there was a con- 
fidence in Cynthia’s manner, a sparkle in 
her eye, that recalled even to Mr. Dilts, a 
small, unobtrusive, almost speechless man, 
the pretty pink-frocked girl with her bunch 
of wavy hair that came to them three years 
ago. That frock and her few others had 
worn out and grown too small, and the fly- 
away locks had long since been cut; he 
privately regretted the change of coiffure 
and the inevitable blue gingham — Aunt 
Lucia bought it by the bolt — and went so 
254 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

far as to say so once, in his meek, uncon- 
vincing fashion. 

But his remonstrances were drowned in 
the flood'of Aunt Lucia’s eloquence. Were 
she and her family to stand publicly and 
privately for “ plain living and high think- 
ing,” and the child given her especially for 
the value of her influence to avoid it all? 
Would that be consistent? Would it be 
even honorable? 

“ Would it be reasonable or proper in me, 
William Dilts,” she demanded, “ believing 
as I do that every moment spent upon our 
mere personal comfort beyond decently 
clothing and suitably nourishing ourselves, 
is not only foolish, but wicked, in view of 
the hundreds of souls and bodies that it is 
our duty to lead to higher things, to allow 
a member of my household to act other- 
wise? Am I to preach one thing and 
practise another ? ” 

“ No, no, Lucia, I s’pose not — I s’pose 
not ! ” he returned, hastily, and thanked 
heaven that even his wife’s principles did 
not compel him to brave society and his 
business in blue gingham garments. 

255 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

Cynthia had rebelled faintly at first, as 
she had shrank from the heavy plain stone- 
ware of the unattractive table, the almost 
bare walls, painted a grayish brown with a 
black stencil bordering, the utter lack of 
ornament or beauty in the furniture of the 
house, which was, however, spotlessly neat 
and well-ventilated. But she was a docile 
child, trained to believe that those who were 
older knew better than she, and, more than 
that, she was adaptable by nature. The 
separation from her father had made lesser 
troubles dwindle, too, and a vague hope 
that things would change had sweetened 
the first two years. But now that she was 
used to her loneliness, her starved sense 
of beauty and simple pleasures asserted it- 
self with double strength, and demanded 
something to lighten the long time yet be- 
fore her. Her intuitions, growing with her 
growth into womanhood, warned her that 
she was losing her cheerful, sunny nature ; 
she craved the conditions of her early life 
as a plant craves air and warmth. 

And the little tea in the park-like garden 
had put the finishing touch to her resolu- 
256 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

tion. After supper, which was eaten in 
silence, as the children were not allowed to 
talk, Mr. Dilts had nothing to say, and Mrs. 
Dilts was absorbed in contemplation, Cyn- 
thia approached her aunt shyly. 

“ May I speak to you a moment, before 
you go out to the lecture, Aunt Lucia ? ” 
she asked. 

“ Certainly, if you make haste,” replied 
Aunt Lucia. “ And while you are speak- 
ing, help me sort these syllabi, Cynthia. 
The lectures on * Reincarnation ’ and 
‘ Sanitary Housefurnishing ’ are mixed.” 

But Cynthia did not pick up the syl- 
labi. 

“ It’s only this, Aunt Lucia,” she said. 
“ I would like a little money to get another 
dress. I am very tired of this one, and I 
am sure Father would not want me to wear 
it ; and I am too old now to wear my hair 
short — it will hardly be long enough before 
Father comes back. I know that you wear 
yours short because you believe that about 
not wasting time, but I don’t ; and I have 
been thinking it over, and it seems to me 
like religious beliefs, almost, but not quite 
257 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

the same, of course, and Father says it is 
foolish to argue about those, for you can’t 
ever convince a man who really believes 
anything. And these heavy shoes have 
always hurt my feet. And Father asked 
about my lace and my sketches in his last 
letter, and though I don’t want to displease 
you, Aunt Lucia, I am going to begin them 
both again. There isn’t any use in my do- 
ing that course of reading — I can’t under- 
stand it at all. I am never going to be a 
lecturer, like you, and I must entertain 
Father and try to make a little home for 
him, as he says, so I can’t afford to forget 
my French or the things he likes. I can 
never lead the higher life, I am perfectly 
sure, and it only makes me cross and un- 
happy to try to. And I shall always like 
mutton-chops.” 

Aunt Lucia rose and fastened her black 
sailor hat by the elastic band that held it 
on. Then she gathered up the syllabi and 
grasped the door-knob. 

“ I am sorry you have wasted all this 
time, Cynthia, by telling me so many things 
I already know,” she said, placidly. “ No 
258 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

one conversant with the laws of Cause and 
Effect could be surprised that the result of 
such a total lack of proper training as your 
father allowed is what it is. A nature so 
irresponsible as his was totally inadequate 
to the training of anything, much less a 
human soul, with all its responsibilities and 
capacities for growth and culture. But to 
proceed to the point. If you have still ma- 
terials for your sketching and lace-making 
— though how you can have the heart for 
it, since I described to you the degraded 
condition of the unfortunate creatures that 
make it in their native country, I cannot 
imagine — you are perfectly at liberty, of 
course, to continue them, if you do it in 
your room, where Bridget and the callers 
and the children are not influenced by it. 
Also, if you feel that you are justified in 
bestowing the time on it, I will make no 
open objection to your letting your hair 
grow. But it will be impossible for you to 
buy yourself any shoes or any new clothes, 
for you have no money.” 

“ No money, Aunt Lucia? But there 

must have been some saved ” 

259 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

“ I am sorry to interrupt you, Cynthia, 
but I have no time to spare. I had not in- 
tended to worry you by informing you of 
matters that are not to be helped, but your 
behavior compels me to do so. Your 
father’s cottage has not been rented for a 
year. The artist who had it the first year 
went abroad, and Mr. Dilts could find no 
one to take his place. Most people, unlike 
your father, do not feel justified in living 
in a place which requires such expenditure 
in cab-fares and bicycles. The money 
saved from your dress and other useless 
luxuries, added to the money your Uncle 
William has been able to get from the rent 
of the lower floor alone — they would not 
pay for the garden or the barn — will just 
cover the actual cost of your living here. 
Your lodging, even if I were unwilling to 
give it to you, which I am happy to say is 
not the case, you have really earned by 
your taking care of the children through 
the summer, addressing my circulars, copy- 
ing my lecture notes, and helping me with 
the house accounts. It has gratified me 
exceedingly to see you a wage-earner in 
260 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

every sense of the term, even while you 
considered yourself merely doing a kind- 
ness — another point on which your father 
and I differ as to the bringing-up of chil- 
dren. 

“ Now, by spending no more than I have 
been accustomed to spend for your clothes, 
and by continuing to give me the help you 
have in the mornings, you can live very 
well for two years, with the present rent for 
the cottage, and your father need not be 
troubled with the matter. Your uncle 
thought it best to tell neither of you, so 
long as you both were satisfied, and I as- 
sented, though I did not thoroughly agree 
with him. You can think it over, and if 
you still wish the extra money, you can 
write to your father, though I doubt if he 
can spare it with the expenses of this cruise. 
I hope you realize, Cynthia, that in any real 
grief you would not lack my sympathy, but 
that with my views and knowing you in 
no actual want or trouble, I cannot spare 
the time to discuss the matter further, 
unless you do not understand the case 
clearly.” 


261 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

Though there were many people who 
found fault with Aunt Lucia, no one had 
ever been heard to suggest that she could 
not express herself clearly. She was ac- 
customed to making herself perfectly un- 
derstood, and on this occasion she met with 
her usual success. If she had been a little 
more open to conviction she would have 
admitted that the self-control and courtesy 
of her niece’s reply spoke well for the train- 
ing of her irresponsible father, but she 
noticed only that there was no occasion for 
further explanation, and left the room 
hastily. 

“ I understand, Aunt Lucia, and I won’t 
complain any more or take up your time,” 
Cynthia said, quietly. She had to bear a 
great disappointment ; she had already 
picked out the new dress, a pretty soft 
dimity, and priced some shoes and ribbons ; 
but relief that she was not in debt, that her 
father need not be worried, that things 
might have been worse, broke the force of 
the blow. 

“ If a thing must be borne, bear it brave- 
ly, Cynthia,” he used to say. “ We can all 
262 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

bear what we must. Don’t whine and look 
tragic, and add to the weight of the world. 
One of the duties of the educated people, 
the ones that have had the advantages, is to 
turn them to account, and make them blos- 
som and smell sweet. It’s never so bad but 
it might be worse. The loads that we hap- 
pen on now and then many poor fellows 
stagger under all their lives.” 

Strangely enough, in the light of this 
greater misfortune, her past troubles 
seemed to grow less, her mounting discon- 
tent and sad looks less excusable. As Aunt 
Lucia had said, she was clothed and fed and 
housed, and able to be a burden to nobody. 
The habit of consideration for others and 
adaptability to their dispositions and points 
of view that her father had steadily taught 
her, more by example than precept, had 
made her more able than most girls of sev- 
enteen to appreciate her aunt’s kindness — 
yes, even leniency, according to her own 
point of view. 

And if, in the finer sense of the word, she 
was not thoroughly kind, at least she was 
just. Not everybody would have acknowl- 
263 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

edged the worth of her freely given services 
so readily. Cynthia knew enough of the 
world for that. 

She need not feel dependent on their 
bounty now. How glad she was of those 
hours spent with the boys ! She was sorry 
not to be fond of them : she had tried to 
make them love her, but they were singu- 
larly unattractive children, and cold, too. 
A strange logical habit of thought, a severe 
impersonal point of view, made it impos- 
sible for one to play with them or cuddle 
them, like other children. They preferred 
their own strange games, and she had a 
conviction that they did not approve of her. 
Indeed, Ralph Waldo Emerson had told 
Bridget once that his Cousin Cynthia was 
badly brought up. How could one tell 
stories to such a boy? Old Joseph was 
more of a child. But she had taken them 
out in the summer and got them ready for 
school in the winter, and done the syllabi 
and circulars. And now she would keep it 
up, and sketch and make the lace in the 
afternoons, and then, there was the sum- 
mer-house ! That old gentleman had liked 
264 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

her, she was sure. He had said to come 
again. 

But almost a week had passed before 
she led the children through the gap in 
the hedge. The good resolutions were 
strengthening, but the dull days brought 
the inevitable reaction ; the disappointment 
cut deeper when the sharp surprise had 
worn off. The blue gingham and the hot, 
bare house seemed the more loathsome by 
contrast with the brave resolution she had 
planned; the children more uncanny than 
ever now that she had obligations to them. 

She knew that her father’s letters reso- 
lutely hid all his doubts and disappoint- 
ments, so she made her own pleasant with 
the only material she had — prophecies for 
a happy future ; and she cheered herself, or 
tried to, by recalling the fact that her winter 
suit of blue serge was a degree less hideous 
than the blue gingham. 

But two years is long to seventeen, and 
it was a sad-faced girl with a pathetic droop 
to her shoulders that escorted Thoreau to 
his favorite stump and established Ralph 
Waldo Emerson on his bench of stone. 

265 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

She strolled half-unconsciously to the 
summer-house, and sat on a rustic seat near 
the door. 

That must have been a happy daughter 
. — for it was her summer-house, she had 
been sure of that as soon as the old gen- 
tleman had spoken of her. Were they 
as contented together as she and her 
father? At least her father was not left 
alone ! 

A sudden thought came to her — perhaps 
that daughter’s name was on the sketches. 
She opened the door, and caught her breath 
for surprise. For it was a summer-house 
transformed. The dull floor had been 
stained and waxed, and shone like a mirror 
around the fresh jute rugs. The divan was 
piled with bright-colored, fluffy cushions, 
and the broken, discolored chairs replaced 
by new ones of rich green color and quaint, 
twisted wicker shapes. The little water- 
colors, though in just the places she had 
hung them, were rematted and framed, 
with vines thrown over them, neverthe- 
less, as she had left them. A fire was laid 
ready on the hearth, and by it stood a low 
266 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

tea-table with dainty cups spread on spot- 
less linen, and the alcohol-lamp ready to 
light. A tall Japanese jar near by held 
masses of golden-rod, and on a shelf built 
in the wall lay a heap of gay-covered maga- 
zines. 

As her eye fell on the space above the 
mantel she gave a little cry of delight and 
amazement, for there hung two of her 
father’s best pictures : one an original 
water-color, the other a photograph from 
his most successful work, an autumn field 
in the late afternoon. 

“ Good-day, Miss Cynthia Maydew ! ” 
came through the wide, high window, “ and 
how do you think I have carried out your 
ideas as to the proper care of summer- 
houses ? ” 

Her face was answer enough. 

“ And you like the pictures ? (Roll the 
chair in, Morgan.) Louis hung them. 
That’s my nephew, and he had these land- 
scapes. 

“ ‘ Hugh Maydew ! ’ said he, ‘ and no one 
else ! Best teacher I ever had ! ’ and he 
brought ’em down. I thought perhaps 
267 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

you’d pour us out some tea, Miss Cynthia 
Maydew? ” 

Her eyes sparkled. But suddenly her 
face fell. She glanced at his sheer silk coat 
and the dainty pillows, and then at her 
scant short skirt, stained when she had 
crept through the green hedge. 

“ I — I’m not pretty enough for these 
pretty things ! ” she cried, abruptly. “ I 
spoil them — they are ” 

“ The flesh-pots of Egypt ! ” he inter- 
rupted quickly, “ and being an artist’s 
daughter, as well as a daughter of Israel, 
you want to match them ! Well, well, my 
dear, it would be a pity for the picture to 
complain of the frame that it was too 
pretty! Morgan, if you will take Miss 
Cynthia Maydew to Mrs. Hoyt, she will 
have a message for her, I think, and you 
will not be needed.” 

She was not argumentative by nature or 
training, and she followed Morgan quietly, 
wondering what message Mrs. Hoyt could 
have for a stranger. 

But when she saw the white ruffled gown 
on the bed in the big mahogany chamber, 
268 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

and hung in ecstasy over all colors of rib- 
bons for neck and waist, she understood. 
Silken hose and soft light slippers, and lace- 
edged handkerchief and tucked petticoat, 
all were ready, and a kindly housekeeper to 
help her with them. 

“ Yes, miss, they were Miss Lydia’s. 
Seventeen, miss, and tall and slim, like you, 
when she died. The house has never been 
the same since. You’d like the pink — the 
rose pink? ’Twas her favorite color, miss. 
Yes, her feet were long and slender, too; 
and Morgan says he’s never seen him so 
interested in years, miss, so we’re all de- 
lighted. I never thought he’d have these 
things touched again — and as fussy about 
the old summer-house; up early to see 
about it, and sending Mr. Louis off to town 
to get the things.” 

“ But my hair, Mrs. Hoyt ! It’s so short 
and ugly — if it would only grow ! ” Cynthia 
mourned, trying not to stare too hard at 
the charming figure the tall pier-glass 
threw back at her. 

“ Don’t you wish it, miss ; don’t you wish 
it! ’Twas the fever Miss Lydia died of, 
269 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

though not directly, and for months her 
pretty hair was short and curly like a boy’s, 
miss. He spoke of that to me. * It’s 
strange, Mrs. Hoyt, isn’t it?’ says he — 
those were his very words.” 

She fluttered down the stairway — a prin- 
cess in a fairy tale. She had not lived with 
conventional people, for artist-folk are 
rarely surprised at the beautiful in life, and 
take good-fortune more easily than most. 
She was too happy to wonder much; fate 
was kind to • her, and her pleasure gave 
pleasure to others — that was enough. 

In the summer-house the loaded tray 
was waiting, Morgan behind it. On the 
couch, thrumming a guitar, lay a tall grace- 
ful boy, who jumped to his feet before she 
reached the threshold. 

“ Nunky, Nunky, you estimable relative, 
a vision is approaching ! ” he whispered, 
loudly. “ Why didn’t you prepare a fel- 
low? This is only my second-best coat! ” 

“ Go away with you ! ” returned the old 
gentleman, “ she’s just a nice girl, that’s 
all.” 

But he had never seen the nice girl with 
270 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

crimson lips and rosy cheeks, standing 
straight, in floating skirts of ruffled white, 
then courtesying shyly before him ; and even 
Morgan stared like any untrained servant. 

“ My nephew Louis, Miss Cynthia May- 
dew,” said Louis’s uncle at last, recovering 
himself, “ and I almost want an introduc- 
tion myself! Give us some tea before we 
eat you up, pink ribbons and all ! ” 

There may have been chicken sand- 
wiches and grapes and little sponge-cakes 
as good as those before, but no one of them 
believed it. And when it was over, and 
they had talked an hour, and she had sung 
her little French songs to Louis’s guitar 
and wondered how she had ever been sad 
in a world that held that summer-house, 
and said faintly that it was time to go and 
Mrs. Hunt would be expecting her, they 
showed her a tall screen in front of the little 
ell, and behind it was a little toilet-table 
with a mirror and a tiny closet — with her 
gingham on a hook there. 

“ That is for your glass slippers, little 
Cinderella Maydew,” he said, chuckling 
irrepressibly, “ and now we’ll bid you good- 
271 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

day. Your haughty sisters are calling even 
now — they suspect the flesh-pots ! ” 

And indeed, Thoreau Channing Parker 
Dilts feared that they had lost the car, and 
explained his fears to his brother in disap- 
proving tones. 

“ To-morrow, next day — any day ! ” 
called the old gentleman. “ Whenever you 
care to come ! ” 

And Cynthia, remembering his words, 
“ When it gets too cold, we’ll move the 
summer-house in, won’t we, Louis ? ” felt 
her heart grow lighter still as she hurried 
on the despised uniform. 

What of it ? It was only a disguise, after 
all. It went with the work of life that 
everyone must have, her father said, and 
to the girl’s happy fancy the work was the 
dream and this harmless, graceful game 
the reality of her days. Even when she 
could not come she would know it was all 
there — the pictures and the cushions and 
the white ruffled gown ; and in her earnest, 
girlish way she hoped that she might be 
good enough to deserve it. It was a 
romance, a picture-book adventure, and 
272 


The Flesh-pots of Egypt 

yet it Wets solid and real — as real as the little 
boys that trotted soberly beside her. 

How Joseph and her father would enjoy 
it ! It was a play after their own hearts. 

And something of the fascination of it 
actually became apparent to Aunt Lucia 
when she knew about it. 

“ Old Mr. Damon is what is called a per- 
fectly respectable man,” she said, “ though 
utterly given over to his own pleasures and 
regardless of the responsibilities of men of 
wealth. If it pleases him to waste his time 
in this way, and you feel that your father 
would not object, I certainly will make no 
public protest. What I may feel is another 
matter.” 

Uncle William smiled uncertainly. “ I 
guess we’re not all alike, Lucia,” he vent- 
ured. “ I think Cynthy looks better in the 
face and fatter. What’s one man’s meat, 
you know ” 

“ It was the flesh-pots made her fat ! ” 
said Waldy, solemnly. “ I saw her eat 
’em ! ” 

And they all laughed together— even 
Mrs. Lucia Harriet Dilts. 

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